****Asia Pivot DA

**1NCAsia is focus of foreign policy pivot now but doubts are growing about the US commitment to rebalancingLobe 13Jim, chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service, J.D Berkley, U.S. Rebalancing to Asia/Pacific Still a Priority, March3, http://www.lobelog.com/u-s-rebalancing-to-asiapacific-still-a-priority/ ///cmf Amidst growing tensions with North Korea and, to a lesser extent, China, the White House Monday insisted

that its re-balancing toward the Asia/Pacific remained on track and that Washington is fully committed to its allies there, especially Japan and South Korea. In a major policy address to the Asia Society in New York City, National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon offered an overview of U.S. strategy in the region, stressing that the re-balancing sometimes referred to as the pivot will be comprehensive, focusing at least as much attention on Washingtons economic role there as its military posture. While much of the speech echoed previous administration policy statements, Donilon, PresidentBarack Obamas closest foreign policy aide, also announced new U.S. sanctions against the Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea, a step that some analysts said could make trade by third countries with Pyongyang more difficult. But he suggested in the clearest terms to date that Washington would respond to any aggressive move by Pyongyang with military force. North Koreas claims may be hyperbolic but as to the policy of the United States, there should be no doubt: we will draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against, and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by North Korea , he declared. He also called on China to deepen its military-to-military dialogue with the U.S. and to take serious steps to end the hacking of U.S. government and private-business computer networks a practice which he said has become a key point of concern and discussion with China at all levels of our governments. His remarks on the latter subject, which included

a call for the two countries to hold a direct dialogue to establish acceptable norms of behaviour in cyberspace, marked the first time a top-ranking U.S. official hasaccused China by name of carrying out such attacks many of which, according to a recent New York Times investigation, have been launched by a Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) unit based in a 12 -story Shanghai office tower. Beijing has strongly denied it is responsible. (T)his is not solely a national security concern or a concern of the U.S. government, he said. Increasingly, U.S. businesses are speaking out about the serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale. The international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country. Donilons speech came amidst threats and counter-threats between North and South Korea in the wake of last months underground nuclear test by Pyongyang, the inauguration of the Souths new president, Park Geun -hye, and Mondays launch of a major joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise which purportedly provoked the Norths announcement to renounce the 60 -yearold armistice and disconnect its hotline with Seoul. The rapid build-up in tensions between the two Koreas has reportedly spurred growing demands within the South to consider developing a nuclear weapon itself, just as renewed tensions between Beijing and Tokyo over a group of islands in the East China Sea has provoked a somewhat similar reaction in Japan. The

hawkish reactions in both Seoul and Tokyo where doubts are growing about whether Washington can actually follow through on its military re-balancing when the Pentagon budget appears headed for decline are clearly of concern to the Obama administration. Donilon went out of hisway to reaffirm its goal of moving 60 percent of the U.S. naval fleet to the Asia-Pacific by 2020 and expanding radar and missile defence systems to protect U.S. allies from the dangerous, destabilising behaviour of North Korea. In these difficult fiscal times, I know that some have questioned whether this rebalance is sustainable, he said. But make no mistake: President Obama has clearly stated that we will maintain our security presence and

engagement in the Asia-Pacific. In addition to reassuring Tokyo and Seoul, Mondays speech also appeared intended in part to dispel any doubts about the regions priority in its global strategy, particularly given Secretary of State John Kerrys choice to make Europe and the Middle East the site of his maiden overseas tour and Obamas decision to make his first second-term trip also to the Middle East. There have been a number of people in the region looking at Kerrys trip and saying maybe theyre looking to re-balance the re-balance, noted Alan Romberg, the head of East Asiaprogrammes at the Stimson Center here.

changes in global economic, political, and security relationships. The breadth of issues is as great as at any time in recent history, encompassing security relations, economics and trade, the U.S. ability to competeand create jobs in the face of ever-stiffer global competition, global financial stability, and even fundamental questions about political and economic models, given the rise of China and other emerging economies. In the context of

such global challenges, a revitalized focus on Asia potentially reflects the Administrations willingness to make far-reaching strategic choices, involving judgments that explicitly downgrade concerns about some challenges to U.S. security, while elevating others. Whether the Administration has set the right priorities, whether its perceptions of global trends are sufficiently hedged, and whether the risks it is willing to countenance are appropriate, all are critical matters for Members of Congress toconsider.

Commitment to Asian security key to shore up perceptions of declining credibility

There is a nagging fear in South East Asian capitals on the intensity and longevity of the US strategic pivot to Asia fearing that both as a result of the US traditional China Hedging Strategy and also because of domestic budget cuts in defence spending, the US commitment to South China Sea security may be a transient phase. How would the United States assure South East Asian countries of its resolve to contain China within its national boundaries and not let it spill its military adventurism in SouthChina Sea region and in South East Asia as a whole? The United States needs to remember how China muscled into South East Asia in the last decade or so when the region lay neglected by the United States. The United States could let South East Asia remain in benign neglect because during that period Chinas military and naval build -up levis were still maturing. In 2013 Chinas military and naval build-up has reached alarming levels and consequently China has already put the United States on notice that at least in the Western Pacific wherein lies the South China Sea conflictual region is located, China is no longer a military push-over or subject to US political and military coercion. The United States can no longer

persist in following its traditional China Hedging Strategy and Risk Aversion Strategy towards China. Persisting in doing so could end up in denting United States image of a credible strategic partner in Asian capitals and endanger its continued embedment in Asia.South China Sea conflicts stood ignited by Chinas military brinkmanship and Chinas military adventurism to which the United States responded by its strategic pivot to Asia Pacific. In 2013 a higher call now awaits the United States in checkmating Chinas military adventurism by shedding ambiguity from its South China Sea policies. The United States needs to take advantage of the Asian strategic polarisation which the China-generated South China Sea conflicts have brought in its wake in favour of the United States. Robert Kaplan, the noted US Author and expert on strategic affairs has wisely observed that: Just as German soil constituted the military frontline of the Cold War, the waters of the South China Sea may constitute the military frontlines in the coming decades. Worldwide multipolarity is already a feature of diplomacy and economics but the South China Sea could show what multipolarity in a military sense actually looks like United States, it is your call now.

Tunc 8Hakan, Professor of Political Science at Carleton University, Reputation and U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq, Orbis Volume 52 Issue 4 2008 Reputation can be defined as a judgment about an actors past behavior and character that is used to predict future behavior. In international politics, a major component of building or maintaining a countrys reputation

involves resolve.5 Policy makers may believe that a lack of resolve in one military confrontation will be seen as an indication of general weakness.6 According to Shiping Tang, thisconcern frequently amounts to a cult of reputation among foreign policy makers, which he defines as a belief system holding as its central premise a conviction (or fear) that backing down in a crisis will lead ones

adversaries or allies to underestimate ones resolve in the next crisis.7 Of particular importance to the cult of reputation is concern about the consequences of withdrawal from a theater of war. The major dictate of the cult of reputation is that a country should stand firm and refuse to withdraw from a theater of war. The underlying belief is that a withdrawal would inflict a severe blow to a countrys reputation and thus embolden the adversaries by boosting commitment and recruitment totheir cause.8 Since the end of World War II, a cult of reputation has evolved among certain American policy makers who maintain that being a global power means being able to convey the image of strength and

resolve.9 According to this perspective, a reputation for firmness and resoluteness deters adversaries and reassures allies about U.S. commitments. Conversely, being perceived as weak and irresolute encourages adversaries to be more aggressive and results in allies being less supportive. This logic has had two general consequences for Americas use of force abroad: First, exhibiting resolve has been deemed necessary even in small and distant countries. This is because the mere perception of power generates tangible power, thereby reducing the need to use actual physical force against every adversary.10 In the 1950s and 1960s, this logic translated into military interventions in several places, notably in Korea and Vietnam, countries whose strategic value to the United States appeared questionable to some.11 Second, reputational concerns made it difficult for the United States to withdraw from a theater of war. The Vietnam War is the most prominent case, although thelogic was also evident during the Korean conflict in the early 1950s.12 As is well-documented by historians, both the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations took reputation seriously and argued that leaving Vietnam without an honorable exit would seriously hurt U.S. credibility in the eyes of allies and adversaries alike. For both Johnson and Nixon, an honorable exit meant creating an autonomous South Vietnam (much like independent, anti-communist South Korea after the Korean war) that was recognized by all parties involved in the conflict, particularly by the North Vietnamese govern- ment. Such an outcome would vindicate U.S. sacrifices.13

Decline causes great power warsAmerican retrenchment collapse current restraints

Zhang and Shi 11 *Yuhan Zhang is a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Currently on leavefrom Graduate School in Economic and Political Development, Lin Shi, MA from Columbia in International Affairs, also serves as an independent consultant for the Eurasia Group and a consultant for the World Bank Americas decline: A harbinger of conflict and rivalry, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-a-harbinger-ofconflict-and-rivalry/ This does not necessarily mean that the US is in systemic decline, but it encompasses a trend that appears to be negative and perhaps alarming. Although

the US still possesses incomparable military prowess and its economy remains the worlds largest, the once seemingly indomitable chasm that separated America from anyone else is narrowing. Thus, the global distribution of power is shifting, andthe inevitable result will be a world that is less peaceful, liberal and prosperous, burdened by a dearth of effective conflict regulation. Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously challenge the

US military. Under these circumstances, motivated by both opportunity and fear, many actors have bandwagoned with US hegemony and accepted a subordinate role. Canada, most of Western Europe, India,Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and the Philippines have all joined the US, creating a status quo that has tended to mute great power conflicts. However, as the hegemony that drew these powers together withers, so will the pulling power behind the US alliance. The

result will be an international order where power is more diffuse, American interests and influence can be more readily challenged, and conflicts or wars may be harder to avoid. As history attests, power decline and redistribution result in military confrontation. For example, in the late 19th century Americas emergence as a regional power saw it launch its first overseas war of conquest towards Spain. By the turn of the 20th century,accompanying the increase in US power and waning of British power, the American Navy had begun to challenge the notion that Britain rules the waves. Such a notion would eventually see the US attain the status of sole g uardians of the Western Hemispheres security to become the order-creating Leviathan shaping the international system with democracy and rule of law. Defining this US-centred system are three key characteristics: enforcement of property

rights, constraints on the actions of powerful individuals and groups and some degree of equal opportunities for broad segments of society. As a result of such political stability, free markets, liberal trade and flexible financial mechanisms have appeared. And, with this, many countries have sought opportunities to enter this system, proliferating stable and cooperative relations. However, what will happen to these advances as Americas influence declines? Given that Americas authority,

although sullied at times, has benefited people across much of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, as well as parts of Africa and, quite extensively, Asia, the answer to this question could affect global society in a profoundly detrimental way. Public imagination and academia have anticipated that a post-hegemonic world would return

to the problems of the 1930s: regional blocs, trade conflicts and strategic rivalry. Furthermore, multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO might give way to regional organisations. For example, Europe and East Asia would each step forward to fill the vacuum left by Washingtons withering leadership to pursue their own visions of regional political and economic orders. Free markets would become more politicised and, well, less free and major

powers would compete for supremacy . Additionally, such power plays have historically possessed a zero-sum element. In the late 1960s and 1970s, US economic power declined relative to the rise of the Japanese and Western European economies, with the US dollar also becoming less attractive. And, as American power eroded, so did internationalregimes (such as the Bretton Woods System in 1973).

A world without American hegemony is one

where great power wars re-emerge , the liberal international system is supplanted by an authoritarian one, and trade protectionism devolves into restrictive, anti-globalisation barriers. This, at least, is one possibility we can forecast in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled USprimacy.

***Uniqueness

2NC Yes PivotAllies Reassured

US committed to pivot nowallies reassured in squo despite budget cutsDilanian 6/1Ken, Hagel: Cuts won't halt Asia pivot, The Baltimore Sun, lexis /// cmf Chuck Hagel emerged from combat in the Vietnam War with two Purple Hearts and "a sense of how important it would be for America to engage wisely in Asia," as he put it to top defense officials gathered here. Now, more than a year

after President Barack Obama pledged to refocus America's security strategy toward Asia, Hagel is using his first visit to the region as defense chief to reassure allies that the so-called pivot won't be derailed by Pentagon budget cuts or competing demands from the civil war in Syria, the nuclear stalemate with Iran and other high-priority issues. "The United States military is not only shifting more of its assets to the Pacific, we are using these assets in new ways to enhance our posture and partnerships," Hagel said at a regional security forum Saturday. Although Hagel didn't say it, his weekend visit also is intended to convince anxious allies that the administration isn't ignoring their concerns about China's recent military buildup and increasingly assertive foreign policy. He hopes to bolster defense ties to traditional allies such as Japan and the Philippines and cement support for new partners, including Vietnam. The regional shiftshave added tension as Obama prepares to meet the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at a private estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif., next week, their first summit since Xi took office in March. The White House hopes to persuade Xi to help rein in North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile tests, to control what U.S. officials call pervasive cyberspying and digital theft by China, and to avoid aggressive moves in disputed shoals and islands in the South China Sea and near Japan that could destabilize regional peace. Hagel had no formal bilateral talks scheduled with Chinese officials on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference, although an informal session is planned. As in the past, Beijing sent a midlevel delegation headed by a military official, not its defense minister, to show its unhappiness with Washington's plans to boost its military presence in the region. With no new deployments or policies to announce, Hagel was left to tout developments begun under his predecessor, Leon Panetta, including sending 250 Marines to northern Australia and a littoral combat ship to Singapore. Hagel is set to visit the ship, the USS Freedom, on Sunday. The Pentagon plans to assign 60 percent of its naval fleet to the western Pacific by 2020, up from 50 percent now. But the mandatory federal sequestration budget cuts have forced the Pentagon to trim about $40 billion in spending this fiscal year, and that has affected some training efforts and ship movements in Asia. The Air Force 374th Airlift Wing, based at Yokota Air Base in Japan, for example, has reduced flying time by 25 percent and canceled participation in a joint exercise in Thailand, officials said. A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in March said the budget cuts could make the pivot untenable. "Plans to restructure U.S. military deployments in Asia may run up against more restrictive budget constraints," it warned. But in his speech, Hagel said budget pressures wouldn't undermine the emphasis on Asia. "It

would be unwise and shortsighted to conclude ... that our commitment to the rebalance cannot be sustained," he said. Hagel became the latest senior U.S. official to accuse China of launching cyberattackson U.S. industry and defense systems, a charge Beijing has repeatedly denied. According to recent news reports, China's cyberspies have obtained data on two dozen U.S. weapon systems, including the combat ship that Hagel plans to tour. Hagel provided no new details, but he said U.S. officials had expressed concerns to Beijing "about the growing threat of cyberintrusions, some of which appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military." He praised the establishment of a U.S.-China cyberworking group and said China's new defense minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan, would visit the Pentagon this year. U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited China in April. Hagel is scheduled to fly from Singapore to Brussels on Monday to attend a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers. Cyberwarfare will be a top agenda item at the NATO conference, he said.

2NC UniquenessPivot Now

Obama administration focusing all foreign policy tools on Asianothing expected to disrupt that attentionStearns 4/11Scott, VOAs State Department correspondent, North Korea, 'Asia Pivot', Tops Kerry's Agenda, http://www.voanews.com/content/north-korea-asia-pivot-tops-kerrys-agenda/1639121.html /// cmf U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry makes his first trip to Asia later this

week, where he will be talking about North Korea and a more active U.S. military and diplomatic presence in the region. On Asia, President Obama's second term starts where his first left off --boosting military, diplomatic, and commercial assets in the region as part of a so-called "Asia Pivot."Ahead of his first trip to Asia as secretary of state, John Kerry compared U.S. goals for the region to those of North Korea. "We want to see a peaceful community of nations trading with each other, working to improve the lives of their citizens; and that is in direct contrast to the North, which maintains gulags, has thousands of political prisoners, treats people in the most inhumane way, and now starves their people in order to build nuclear weapons," Kerry stated. With so much at stake - and needing China's help with North Korea - American

University professor Pek Koon Heng sees no change in Washington's Asia engagement. "The whole bundle of issues about trade and defense and security and political cooperation and global issues, China more than any other country is who the U.S. has to work with. So I don't see the Americans taking their eyes off the ball in the second Obama administration," shesaid.

US shifting foreign policy attention fully to Asia

Logan 13Justin, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, China, America, and the Pivot to Asia, Policy Analysis No. 717, Jan-8 /// cmf Slowly, Washington policy elites have come back around to the position that the most

consequential international-political changes are taking place in Asia. On an October 2011 trip to Asia, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta remarked that Washington was at a turning point away from the Middle East and toward the Asia-Pacific and that this shift will entail a strategic rebalancing.6 Similarly, a recent article by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked that the future of geopolitics will be decided in Asia, not in Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States should be right at the center of the action.7 Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell says that one of the most important challenges for U.S. foreign policy is to effect a transition from the immediate and vexing challenges of the Middle East to the long-term and deeply consequential issues in Asia.8

2NC AT Link Non-unique

The Asia Pivot is the priority over Latin America nowBryant 12Dane Bryant, 9/28/12, World Politics Review, "Chavez or not, it's time to rethink the US-Venezuela relationship," http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12380/chavez-or-not-its-time-to-rethink-the-u-s-venezuela-relationship Over the past four years, the Obama administration has been preoccupied, both militarily

and

diplomatically, with the drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan and the shifting dynamics of the post-Arab Spring Middle East. More recently, the Asia pivot has become the lodestar of U.S. strategic

planning . As a result, Latin America has not received the attention it warrants, at a time whenthe region is undergoing rapid changes.

There has been no change in Latin American policy, the aff is that transformationBranigan et al 2012 (Tania Branigan in Beijing, Jason Burke in Delhi, David Smith in Johannesburg, Jonathan Watts inRio de Janeiro, Ian Traynor in Brussels; Obama's first term: pivot to Asia and tweaks to Latin America; Oct 21; www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/21/obama-foreign-policy-pivots-asia; kdf)

Obama has tweaked rather than transformed US policy towards Latin America, despite theincreased influence and integration of a region that is growing economically and becoming more dependent on China.

Aside from a slight relaxation of the embargo on Cuba in 2009, the White House has largely continued the approach of previous administrations by putting a priority on the (losing) battle against narcotics trafficking. Promises to put more emphasis on

reducing US demand as well as Latin American supply have failed to produce results : drug use and murder rates are both rising.

**AT Thumpers**

2NC AT Thumpers Generic

Asia is Obamas top priorityGerges 13Fawaz, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he directs the Middle East Centre, Obama and the Middle East: the lessons of Iraq? Feb-18, http://www.opendemocracy.net/fawaz-gerges/obama-and-middleeast-lessons-of-iraq /// cmf

Another point that must be stressed is that the Middle East is not a priority on the Obama foreign policy agenda. The Administration has shifted its foreign policy and economic priorities to Asia where Obama and his aides believe that Americas future lies. The Obama administration has reduced its commitments in the non-oil producing Arab states and has relied on its regional and European allies to shoulder the burden and responsibilities of maintaining western influence. Although Obamas rhetoric had given the impression of heightened US involvement and commitment to the region, his actual foreign policy priorities lie elsewhere the rising powers in the Pacific Ocean. But as often happens, before the end of Obamas firstterm in the White House, the major popular uprisings witnessed in the Arab world forced him to become more involved in the region against his own will.

Kerry reaffirmed US commitment to Asiadebunked doubts about other priorities

to reassure Southeast Asian leaders on Monday that America is committed to deepening its relationship with the region, despite fears that Washington's foreign-policy agenda was returning to the Middle East. Some Asian diplomats have privately expressed worries that U.S. budget cuts and Mr. Kerry's own growing focus on Syria and reviving the stalled peace process between Israeli and Palestinian leaders is weakening Washington's push to rebalance its foreign policy toward Asia's booming economies. At the same time, China has launched a charm offensive with the strategically importantcountries of Southeast Asia, potentially undermining America's momentum, analysts say, by agreeing to discussions on how to best resolve territorial conflicts in the energy-rich South China Sea and offering to upgrade its trade relationship with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc. "Let me be crystal clear," Mr. Kerry said at a security forum here. "I know some

people wonder whether the second term of the Obama administration and a new secretary of state are going to continue on the path that we are on. And the answer I say to all of you is 'yes,' and not just 'yes': We hope to increase the effort." To emphasize the point, Mr. Kerry tolda news conference afterward that he and foreign ministers from South Korea, China and Japan had agreed that North Korea must take concrete steps to unwind its nuclear-weapons program before reviving multiparty talks on breaking North Korea's international isolation. "All of us, all four of us, are absolutely united and absolutely firm in our insistence that the future with respect to North Korea must include denuclearization," he said. Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. has stepped up its diplomatic and commercial involvement in Asia after a decade focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a stark statement of intent during an earlier Asean meeting in Vietnam, declaring that America was back in the region as a Pacific power. Mr. Obama has dabbled in similar rhetoric, telling

Australian lawmakers in 2011 that the U.S. is "all in" on Asia. Since then, Washington has from timeto time infuriated China by declaring America's interest in seeing a peaceful resolution to conflicting territorial claims in the South China Seawhich Beijing views as U.S. encroachmentwhile U.S. forces have gradually stepped up their military relationship with old allies, such as the Philippines, and new partners like Vietnam. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said in an interview Monday that his country is reviewing how to provide U.S. forces with more access to the country's military bases. But since Mr. Kerry succeeded Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, he has at times appeared more interested in addressing issues in the Middle East. Mr. Kerry arrived in Brunei a day behind schedule after four days of negotiations in the Mideast over the Palestinian issue. Earlier this year, he pulled out of a planned trip to Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy and most populous nation. Cuts in Pentagon spending are also threatening to delay Washington's military and economic pivot of its resources to Asia. Across-the-board federal budget reductions known as the sequester required the Defense Department to cut spending by as much as $41 billion in the fiscal year to the end of September, and further cuts could follow. "The U.S. may have lost some of its traction, some of the momentum built up by Hillary Clinton, and it's not really offering anything new," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. Mr. Kerry singled out maritime security in the shipping lanes of the South China

Sea as a policy priority. The waters are claimed in whole or in part by China, Vietnam and the Philippines, amongothers, occasionally sparking armed confrontations. "What happens here matters to the United States and it also matters to everybody else, it matters to the global community," Mr. Kerry said. He was careful to stress that the U.S.'s interest in the region wasn't designed to "contain" or "counterbalance" any one countrya thinly veiled reference to China, whose own influence continues to grow.

2NC AT Syria Thumper

Arming of Syrian rebels not perceived as a major foreign policy commitmentThe Economist 6/22Barack Obamas tentative step, http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21579851-americas-decision-send-morearms-rebels-no-means-guaranteed /// cmf It was in that spirit of caution that the administration announced on June 13th that, for the first time, it

would give weapons and other forms of lethal military kit to the rebels. Though the move met withbluster from Mr Assads ally, Russiaand wary enthusiasm from Syrian rebel commanders it

was not a giant

step. American officials have given scant detail, but it is thought that the CIA will co-ordinate thesupply of light arms to the rebels. In an interview with PBS television on June 17th, Mr Obama derided the ideathat heavier weapons, such as anti-tank or anti-helicopter rockets and missiles, could swiftly tip the balance of power away from the Assad regime. The new weaponry will be channelled through the Supreme Military Command, a Western-backed rebel body headed by Selim Idriss, a general who defected from Mr Assads forces, and whose connections to moderate groups America has been testing with supplies of food and medicine. Americas programme, likely to be based in Jordan, on Syrias southern border, may in effect amount to a beefing up of a Saudi operation there, which already involves the CIA in training vetted rebels. The official explanation for the decision to start arming the opposition rests on a recent assessment by American intelligence agencies, after weeks of investigations, that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, in several small-scale attacks on the opposition, killing as many as 150 people. However, Obama aides have also linked the new policy to a deteriorating situation on the ground in Syria in recent weeks, as the regime enjoyed greater success on the battlefield, in part thanks to help from Iran and Hizbullah, Lebanons Shia party-cum-militia, which the United States regards as a terrorist outfit. A question-mark hangs over what America hopes to achieve. Washington sources say thathaving warned Syria publicly that the systematic use of chemical weapons would cross a red line and force America to change its policyMr Obama had to do something, on the grounds that superpowers do not bluff. In addition, advocates of arming the opposition have long argued that America may gain leverage by sending its own weaponry down supply-lines already filled with aid from Gulf Arab countries and Turkey. But without supplying anti-aircraft weapons, America is unlikely to give a boost to the rebels of the magnitude that Hizbullah gifted the regime when it helped Mr Assads army to capture the rebel stronghold of Qusayr on June 5th. Some reckon it is even too late to achieve the more modest goals of bringing the fissiparous rebel groups under a single command structure and marginalising more extreme elements, in particular the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. Once a group has seen its fortunes fall, it is hard to resuscitate it. Take, for example, Shuhada Suria (Martyrs of Syria). Just a year ago this group, which operates in the north-west province of Idleb and whose leader sits on the Supreme Military Command, was a leading fighting force. But it has faltered in part because funding has shrivelled, prompting defections to stronger groups, usually more Islamist ones. One rebel commander moans that the stinginess of foreign supplies of arms has been like giving us injections just often enough to stop us from being killed off. America must stomach some arms falling into the wrong hands, too. Gulf-purchased Croatian weapons delivered to the rebels earlier this year led to gains in the south, which were reversed when supplies abruptly stopped, apparently after some were spotted in the hands of unsavoury groups including the Yarmouk Martyrs, an Islamist lot that abducted four UN peacekeepers in May. Private donations from such places as Kuwait, usually to Salafist groups, continue to bolster the sort of militias that give the rebelsin Western eyesa bad name. A policy that fuels but does not change the dynamics of the war is the worst of all worlds, says Emile Hokayem, an analyst based in Bahrain for a London -based think-tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Rebel commanders hope that Americas shift includes a green light for Saudi Arabia to provide them with man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADs)hitherto vetoed by America. That may be a forlorn hope. Mr

Obama noted this month that some of the most effective opposition fighters are no friends of America, so that arming them willy-nilly is hardly in Americas long-term interests.

2NC AT Middle East Thumper

Middle East is not a foreign policy priorityno material proof, only rhetoricGerges 13Fawaz, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he directs the Middle East Centre, Obama and the Middle East: the lessons of Iraq? Feb-18, http://www.opendemocracy.net/fawaz-gerges/obama-and-middleeast-lessons-of-iraq /// cmf

Another point that must be stressed is that the Middle East is not a priority on the Obama foreign policy agenda. The Administration has shifted its foreign policy and economic priorities to Asia where Obama and his aides believe that Americas future lies. The Obama administration has reduced its commitments in the non-oil producing Arab states and has relied on its regional and European allies to shoulder the burden and responsibilities of maintaining western influence. Although Obamas rhetoric had given the impression of heightened US involvement and commitment to the region, his actual foreign policy priorities lie elsewhere the rising powers in the Pacific Ocean. But as often happens, before the end of Obamas firstterm in the White House, the major popular uprisings witnessed in the Arab world forced him to become more involved in the region against his own will.

2NC AT Israel Peace Process Thumper

Obama not spending political capital on the peace processno hint at future plans eitherGerges 13Fawaz, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he directs the Middle East Centre, Obama and the Middle East: the lessons of Iraq? Feb-18, http://www.opendemocracy.net/fawaz-gerges/obama-and-middleeast-lessons-of-iraq /// cmf For example, after his initial attempt to help broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace process, Obama

has taken a cautious stance. Netanyahus opposition has frustrated Obamas quest. Instead of challenging Netanyahu and exerting more pressure on him to accept a sensible solution, Obama let the Israeli Prime Minister off the hook. Obama squarely lost the first and final round because he was unwilling to spend more political capital at home. He recognized the costs to his domestic and foreign policy agenda and cut his losses. Given Obamas worldview and his priorities, it is doubtful if the US president will make another major drive to broker a peace settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis. Just a few days ago, Obama reportedly bemoaned Netanyahus decision to build more settlements on occupiedPalestinian lands. He reportedly called Netanyahu a coward because of his failure to meet the Palestinians halfw ay, adding that he expected Netanyahu to continue his reckless ways. In his second term in office, Obama will most likely

avoid pursuing efforts to broker a peace settlement because he does not see conditions ripe to do so. What this means is that the US president does not seem to be inclined to exert pressure on Israel Americas strategic client in the region.

2NC AT Africa Thumper

Africa is not a prioritythe renewed interest is just a reaffirmation of existing programs and commitmentsGalvez 6/30Rick, International Relations MA graduate of Syracuse University's Maxwell School, Obama Africa Trip: Bush Was Better For Africa Than the Guy Accused Of Being Born in Kenya, http://www.policymic.com/articles/51549/obama-africa-trip-bush-wasbetter-for-africa-than-the-guy-accused-of-being-born-in-kenya /// cmf Obama, in contrast, has done little outside of a 2009 visit to Ghana when he offered words and not much else. He has Kenyans in a "small uproar" because he will not be visiting, which is representative of his larger stance or more aptly, non-stance on the region. The itinerary of this "guilt trip," as some have called it, is a miss; it neglects the biggest regional powers in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Additionally, the most successful USAID

development programs Feed the Future and the Global Health Initiative are simply incarnations of previous administration's programs and are not limited to Africa in particular. The CommerceDepartment's "Doing Business in Africa" campaign has produced minimal results, along with USAID attempts at bolstering trade. The larger point is that

African development is simply not a priority for Obama. This

is, to a certain extent, understandable. He's had a lot on his plate. Between

economic crises, war, and scandal, Obama has had to prioritize, leaving Africa on the back-burner. Many argue that this is notnecessarily a bad thing; Obama should be focusing on domestic crises and shoring up security at home before spending time on security around the world which has minimal impact on America.

***Links

LinkBag of Goods (Dip Cap)

Latin American engagement and Asia pivot are zero-sumAnderson and Grewell 2k1(Terry, Professor of Economics at Montana State University, Bishop J., Research Associate at the Political Economy Research Center, From Local to Global Property, Chicago Journal of International Law, 2 Chi. J. Intl L. 427, Fall, Lexis) Greater international environmental regulation can increase international tension. Foreign policy is a bag of

goods that includes issues from free trade to arms trading to human rights. Each new issue in the bag weighs it down, lessening the focus on other issues and even creating conflicts between issues.Increased environmental regulations could cause countries to lessen their focus on international threats of violence, such as the sale of ballistic missiles or border conflicts between nations. As countries must watch over more and

more issues arising in the international policy arena, they will stretch the resources necessary to deal with traditional international issues. As Schaefer writes, "Because diplomatic currency is finite . . . it is critically important that the United States focus its diplomatic

LinkGeneric Regional Focus Tradeoff

Focusing on one region trades off with another engagement with Latin America can undermine the credibility of the Asia PivotMark Manyin et al, 5/28/12, Congressional Research Service, "pivot to the pacific? the obama administration's 'rebalancing' towards asia," http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf

Increasing the relative importance of the Asia-Pacific in U.S. policy could conceivably diminish U.S. capabilities in other regions. In particular, in an era of constrained U.S. defense resources, an increased U.S. military emphasis onthe Asia-Pacific region might result in a reduction in U.S. military presence or capacity in other parts of the world, which in turn could increase risks for the United States in those other regions. While the United States does not want to reduce its commitments in the Middle East, for instance, forces similar to those needed in Asia are also required there. High priority capabilities in both regions include short- and medium-range missile defense, rotational naval deployments and air attack forces, and rapid-reaction ground forces.

Such forces may be

strained by simultaneous demands in both regions.

The high-profile manner in which the Pacific Pivot initiatives

have been unveiledthrough a series of Presidential and Cabinet-level trips, announcements, speeches, and articlesappears to have been designed to call as much attention to them as possible.

This approach also carries the potential costs and risks. For example, the high profile that Obama Administration officials have given to the initiative could lead leaders in other regions to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the United States is disengaging, thereby eroding U.S. global influence. Even the use of the term pivot, which has persisted despite the Administrations later (See Selected Documents and Speeches.) Part of the reason for this may have been to demonstrate to regional players the depth of the Administrations commitment and resolve. substitution of the term rebalancing, could signal the changeability of U.S. policy priorities.23 For instance, when the Obama Administration first came to office, it sometimes appeared to put the U.S.-China relationship at the center of its Asia strategy. If that ever was Administration policy, such an approach has been abandoned. Also,

if the United States

pivots once, it can pivot again , perhaps if a successor administration adopts a different set ofpriorities. 24The depth of the Obama Administrations rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific region also may be called into question as time goes on. As yet, it does not appear that the Administration has translated its pronouncements into an acrossthe-government plan to implement the new elements of the strategy. The Administrations budget request for FY2013 sends ambiguous signals. On the one hand, the proposed budget includes a 5% decrease for East Asia and Pacific (EAP) bilateral assistance programs below projected spending levels for FY2012. On the other hand, compared to some other aid regions, funding for EAP remains relatively stable. Overall assistance funding to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia (which includes Afghanistan), for example, is to fall by 18%, according to the FY2013 budget request.25 Additionally, the prominence the Obama Administration has given to the initiative has undoubtedly raised the potential costs to the United States if it or successor administrations fail to follow

Chinese analysts have already expressed skepticism about the U.S. ability to follow through on the pivot, given U.S. economic difficulties and the continuing turmoil in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and other areas.26 If such predictions come to pass, U.S. influence may fall farther and faster due to the Obama Administrations high profile announcements.through on public pledges.

LinkGeneric TradeoffThe US is moving away from the West to focus on the pivot, plan reverses the trendCarament and Palamar 2012 (David and Simon; Canada Grapples with Asia Dilemma; Feb 10;thediplomat.com/2012/02/10/canada-grapples-with-asia-dilemma/comment-page-1/?all=true; kdf) First and foremost, a broader policy agenda must grapple with the military and strategic aspects of China's tremendous economic success and the U.S. reaction. Much ink has been spilt and hands have been wrung over Chinas military build -up. However, with the announcement of the new American Strategic Guidance document, it seems as if the United States

is ready to pivot away from the North Atlantic and Near East and towards the Pacific basin, where Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, and others have welcomed them as a balance to China. The Strategic Guidancedocument has China in mind, as it calls for U.S. armed forces that are lighter on the ground, and that emphasize sea and air assets, Special Forces, and exotic technology. This Asia pivot is further affected by what one former

U.S. State Department official described as a declining appetite in Washington to own the worlds problems. The United States may still continue to intervene in failed states, civil wars, and disaster zones, but their commitment may be more limited, their footprint smaller, and the expectations of their allies (including Canada), greater. In an age of austerity, the Obama administration has prioritized seeking continued dominance in the Pacific basin at a cost to power projection elsewhere.

LinkSpending TradeoffAsia pivot is zero-sum with new spending on other US interestsKelly 12Robert, professor of political science at Pusan National University, Senior Analyst as Wikistrat, Why the U.S. wont pivot t o Asia anytime soon, March-29, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/29/why-america-wont-pivot-to-asia-anytime-soon/ /// cmf America obviously needs to spend less, and money which could fund domestic entitlements is going to defense instead. The

opportunity cost of buying aircraft carriers to semi-contain China is cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Those programs, plus Defense, comprise around 70% of the U.S. budget, making the pivot a classic guns vs. butter trade-off. Americas debt exceeds ten trilliondollars and its deficit a trillion. Bush borrowed hugely, and the Great Recession worsened the red ink. Given Chinas enormity, a U.S. build-up in the region could cost massive sums that just arent there

anymore. The average American voter will see that domestic entitlements are suffering to fund the continuing post-9/11U.S. military expansion. It is unlikely Americans will choose guns over butter (aircraft carriers instead of checks for grandma) in the medium-term.

Resources are finiteplan causes tradeoff

Klinger 2013(Bruce; Increasing Risk of North Korean Tactical Attack on South Korea: What US Needs to do; Mar 30; www.eurasiareview.com/30032013-increasing-risk-of-north-korean-tactical-attack-on-south-korea-what-u-s-needs-to-do/; kdf)

friends and enemies are questioning U.S. ability to deliver on its security promises. Deputy Carter traveled to Asia in mid-March to address rising allied concerns that massive cuts to the U.S. defense budget have weakened President Obamas Asia Pivot strategy andBut Secretary of Defense Ashton U.S. military capabilities. Carters reassurances were at odds, however, with earlier Pentagon statements of the devastating impact of sequestration, including Carters own March 12 speech that the cuts could reduce the naval ship and aircraft operations in the Pacific region by one-third, force four carrier air wings to stop flying, and

the Obama Administrations bold rhetoric on its Asia Pivot strategy was not backed with sufficient resources. Claims of the U.S. being back in Asia were undermined by a budget-driven defense strategy that left the military shortchanged and U.S. credibility and resolve in doubt.leave gaps in the availability of Marine Amphibious Ready Groups.[11] Even prior to sequestration,

LinkEconomic Engagement Generic

Economic engagement with the Asia-Pacific region is key to the Asia PivotMark Manyin et al, 5/28/12, Congressional Research Service, "pivot to the pacific? the obama administration's 'rebalancing' towards asia," http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf Economics and trade are both causes of and instruments for the pivot toward the Asia-Pacific. Historical trends and most future projections indicate that the greater Asia-Pacific region is rising in importance in the global economy and world trade.55 The region has been actively pursuing greater economic integration at a pace exceeding that of other parts of the globe. As shown in The Economic Rise of Asia, the Asia-Pacific region has become more vital to the global and U.S. economies as well. Accordingly, the Obama Administration has increased the

U.S. focus on economic and trade relations in the Asia-Pacific. Among other motivations, the regionplays a crucial role in President Obamas National Export Initiative. Four of the ten emerging export markets targeted in the 2011 National Export Strategy China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam are part of the Asia-Pacific region.56 Additionally, heightened U.S. economic engagement for instance, through participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) FTA talks demonstrate that

the United States wishes to remain a major force in the regions economic and geopolitical dynamics.

Latin American economic engagement and Asia pivot engagement are zerosumAnderson and Grewell 2k1(Terry, Professor of Economics at Montana State University, Bishop J., Research Associate at the Political Economy Research Center, From Local to Global Property, Chicago Journal of International Law, 2 Chi. J. Intl L. 427, Fall, Lexis) Greater international environmental regulation can increase international tension. Foreign policy is a bag of

goods that includes issues from free trade to arms trading to human rights. Each new issue in the bag weighs it down, lessening the focus on other issues and even creating conflicts between issues.Increased environmental regulations could cause countries to lessen their focus on international threats of violence, such as the sale of ballistic missiles or border conflicts between nations. As countries must watch over more and

more issues arising in the international policy arena, they will stretch the resources necessary to deal with traditional international issues. As Schaefer writes, "Because diplomatic currency is finite . . . it is critically important that the United States focus its diplomatic

region, but some foreign-policy analysts say that shouldnt distract from the need to build better alliances with U.S. neighbors, which could be key to restoring the nations sluggish economy. Nowhere is thatmore apparent than Mexico, whose president-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, is scheduled to visit Washington this month and has signaled an openness to deeper cooperation, including in the energy sector.

I think the Obama if things in Mexico get

which has much more

administration is focused on the Asia pivot , said Andrew Selee, who heads the Mexico Institute atthe Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. But

exciting, we may see a pivot toward the Western Hemisphere,

tangible consequences. One manufacturing, Mr. Selee said. This will make the U.S. much more competitive globally.

of our greatest paths to making the U.S. economy more dynamic is to tie it much more closely to the Mexican and Canadian economies in terms of innovation and

LinkLatin America Focus Generic

The plan is a major adjustment in foreign policyjeopardizes the pivotHaibin 6/23(Niu [Research Fellow, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies]; Latin America's Rising Status in the Sino-US Relationship; www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/latin-americas-rising-status-in-the-sino-us-relationship/; kdf) For the Obama administration's second term, it is a major policy adjustment rather than a policy

continuation to focus on Latin America. Since 9/11, counter-terrorism efforts, the international financial crisis,and the pivot to Asia have occupied the majority of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Subsequently, Latin America has been an overlooked region for more than a decade. The Obama administrations first term tried to improve its relationship with the region, but faced setbacks because of its policies on Cuba, immigration and anti-drug issues. Instead, the regional approach must be shifted to a bilateral, country-by-country approach. There Obama administrations policy shift in Latin America can be explained by two factors: the rediscovered importance of Latin America to the United States economic recovery and Latin Americas position as a promising region could allow US engagement to make visible achievements. First, in the 2012 presidential debates, Republican candidate Mitt Romney criticized Obama's Latin American policy and

treated the Latin American economy as an alternative to China, arguing to strengthen US trade with the region. This argument obviously had an impact on Obamas second term agenda and Latin American policy. Second, following the same logic of its pivot to the Asia Pacific, Latin America is a stable and promising region the U.S. cant afford to overlook. Achievements in US relations withLatin America will also help Democrats win future presidential elections considering the increasing influence of Latinos in domestic politics. In regards to President Xis Latin American policy, it is more a continuation than an adjustment of policy. In the past decade, the Sino-Latin American relationship has witnessed a golden period of development. China is the second largest trading partner for Latin America; its demand for raw materials and primary products has both improved Latin American countries terms of trade and contributed to the regions better performance in dealing with the recent international financial crisis. Additionally, President Xi has worked to deepen the ties by addressing potential challenges, strengthening this promising relationship. China raised its strategic partnerships with Peru and Mexico to comprehensive strategic ones. Mutual investment, financial cooperation and open trade are being paid more attention from the Chinese side. One aim of Chinas recent diplomacy is to establish a Sino-Latin American Dialogue Forum, which has received positive supports from Brazil, Mexico, and other countries within the region. Now, it is necessary to understand how this

strengthening interest by the US and China in Latin America could impact the Sino-US relationship as well as Latin America as a whole. From a geopolitical perspective, both sides have some arguments to dilute each others influence globally. However, policy influence of such argumentsis very limited. It is natural for both world powers diplomatic agendas to intersect. One noteworthy argument from Chin ese side is that China should enhance its engagement with regions outside of Asia as the US pivot to the Asia Pacific attempts to contain China. This argument should be interpreted to explore the diplomatic space available for China as a global power rather than to counter US hegemony. Also, China needs to understand the recent intensive American engagement with Latin America by following the same logic. In fact, both countries demonstrated their pragmatic spirit and economic-oriented approach during their recent engagements with Latin America. The most cited achievement about President Xi's visit to Mexico was that China agreed to resume imports of Mexican pork and to import tequila. Similar review was also given to President Obamas visit to Mexico by arguing the trip was to focus on economic cooperation rather than drug issues. This is a good posture considering that no Latin American country wants to choose side between the US and China. Ultimately, Latin American countries benefit from cooperation with the worlds two largest markets. Although both countries are

trying to avoid geopolitical competition, it is important to manage their interaction in Latin America. At the bilateral level, the United States and China have held several strategic dialogues on Latin American affairs since 2006. The purpose of the dialogue is to enhance mutual trust and preventmiscalculations by interpreting their engagements with Latin America. This continual dialogue can help interpret why the US government holds a positive attitude to Chinas increasing ties with Latin America despite some very conservative and suspicious attitudes in the US. The US has showed its support to both Chinas permanent observer status in the Organization of American States and Chinas membership at the Inter-American Development Bank.

LinkMilitary AssistanceCauses tradeoffs that wreck the budgetJack Spencer 11, Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, 6/22/11, Capability, Not Politics, Should Drive DOD Energy Research, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/capability-not-politics-should-drive-dod-energy-research With multiple wars ongoing, traditional threats looming, and new ones emerging, the U.S. Armed

Forces are already under tremendous stress.

So introducing

a new assignment that

to advance a political agenda is

needlessly bleeds scarce resources away from core missions

revolution.

untenable . Yet this is exactly what the Obama Administration is doing by ordering the military to lead a greenThe White House is pushing the idea that the alternative energy industry would get the kick start it needs if the military will just commit to using them. But the assumptions behind this argument are flawed, and the strategy would

increase

demands on the military budget while harming national security. Congress should put a stop to itright away.

Budget tradeoffs undermine the U.S. pivot to Asianuclear war

Colby 11 Elbridge Colby, research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, served as policy advisor to the Secretary ofDefenses Representative to the New START talks, expert advisor to the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, August 10, 2011, Why the U.S. Needs its Liberal Empire, The Diplomat, online: http://the-diplomat.com/2011/08/10/why-us-needs-its-liberalempire/2/?print=yes But the pendulum shouldnt be allowed to swing too far toward an incautious retrenchment. For our problem hasnt been overseas commitments and interventions as such, but the kinds of interventions. The US alliance and partnership structure, what the late William Odom called the United States liberal

empire that includes a substantial military presence and a willingness to use it in the defence of US and allied interests, remains a vital component of US security and global stability and prosperity. This system of voluntary and consensual cooperation under US leadership, particularly in the security realm, constitutes a formidable bloc defending the liberal international order. But, in part due to poor decision-making in Washington, this systemis under strain, particularly in East Asia, where the security situation has become tenser even as the region continues to become the centre of the global economy. A nuclear North Koreas violent behaviour threatens South Korea and Japan, as well as US forces on the peninsula; Pyongyangs development of a road mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, moreover, brings into sight the day when North Korea could threaten the United States itself with nuclear attack, a prospect that will further imperil stability in the region. More broadly, the opaque military build-up combined with its increasing assertiveness in regional disputes is

rise of China and especially its rapid and troubling to the United

States and its allies and partners across the region. Particularly relevant to the US military presence in the western Pacific is the development of Beijings anti-access and area denial capabilities, including the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, more capable anti-ship cruise missiles, attack submarines, attack aircraft, smart mines, torpedoes, and other assets. While Beijing remains a constructive contributor on a range of matters, these capabilities will give China the growing power to deny the United States the ability to operate effectively in the western Pacific, and thus the potential to undermine the US-guaranteed security substructure that has defined littoral East Asia since World War II. Even if China says today it wont exploit this growing capability, who can tell what tomorrow or the next day will bring? Naturally, US efforts to build up forces in the western Pacific in response to future Chinese force improvements must be coupled with efforts to engage Beijing as a responsible stakeholder; indeed, a strengthened but appropriately restrained military posture will enable rather than detract from such engagement. In short, the United States must increase its

involvement in East Asia rather than decrease it. Simply maintaining the military balance in the western Pacific will, however, involve substantial investments to improve US capabilities. It willalso require augmented contributions to the common defence by US allies that have long enjoyed low defence budgets under the US security umbrella. This wont be cheap , for these requirements cant be met simply by incremental additions to the existing posture, but will have to include advances in air, naval, space, cyber, and other expensive high-tech capabilities. Yet such efforts are vital, for East Asia represents the economic future, and its strategic

developments will determine which country or countries set the international rules that shape that economic future. Conversely, US interventions in the Middle East and, to a lesser degree, in south-

eastern Europe have

been driven by far more ambitious and aspirational conceptions of the national interest, encompassing the proposition that failing or illiberally governed peripheral states can contribute to an instability that nurtures terrorism and impedes economic growth. Regardless of whether this proposition is true, the effort is rightly seen by the new political tide not to be worth the benefits gained . Moreover, the United States canscale (and has scaled) back nation-building plans in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans without undermining its vital interests in ensuring the free flow of oil and in preventing terrorism. The lesson to be drawn from recent years is not, then, that the United States should scale back or shun overseas commitments as such, but rather that we must be more discriminating in making and acting upon them. A total US unwillingness to intervene would pull the rug out from under the US-led structure, leaving the international system prey to disorder at the least, and at worst to chaos or dominance by others who could not be counted on to look out for US interests. We need to focus on making the right interventions, not forswearing them completely. In practice, this

means a more substantial focus on East Asia and the serious

security challenges there, and less emphasis on the Middle East. This isnt to say that the United States should be unwilling to intervene in the Middle East. Rather, it is to say that our interventions there should be more tightly connected to concrete objectives such as protecting the free flow of oil from the region, preventing terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies, and forestalling or, if necessary, containing better

nuclear proliferation

as

opposed to the more idealistic aspirations to transform the regions societies. These more concrete objectives can

be met by the more judicious and economical use of our military power. More broadly, however, it means a shift in US emphasis away from the greater Middle East toward the Asia-Pacific region, which dwarfs the former in economic and military potential and in the dynamism of its societies. The Asia-Pacific region, with its hard-charging economies and growing presence on the global stage, is where the future of the international security and economic system will be set, and it is there thatWashington needs to focus its attention, especially in light of rising regional security challenges. In ceiling deal, its doubly important that US

light of US

budgetary pressures , including the hundreds of billions in security related money to be cut as part of the debtsecurity dollars be allocated to the most pressing tasks shoring up the US position in the most important region of the world, the Asia -Pacific. It will also require restraint in expenditure on those challenges and regions that dont touch so directly on the future of US security and prosperity. As Americans debate the proper US global role in the wake of the 2008financial crisis and Iraq and Afghanistan, they would do well to direct their ire not at overseas commitments and intervention as such, but rather at those not tied to core US interests and the sustainment and adaptation of the liberal empire that we have constructed and maintained since World War II. Defenders of our important overseas links and activities should clearly distinguish their cause from the hyperactive and barely restrained approach represented by those who, unsatisfied with seeing the United States tied down in three Middle Eastern countries, seek intervention in yet more, such as Syria. Indeed, those

who refuse to scale back US interventions in the Middle East or call for still more are directly contributing to the weakening of US commitments in East Asia, given strategic developments in the region and a sharply constrained budgetary environment in Washington. We can no longer afford, either strategically or financially, to squander our power inunnecessary and ill-advised interventions and nation-building efforts. The ability and will to intervene is too important to be so wasted.

LinkUS/China RelationsStrong U.S.-China relations are key to sustaining the Asia PivotMark Manyin et al, 5/28/12, Congressional Research Service, "pivot to the pacific? the obama administration's 'rebalancing' towards asia," http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42448.pdf The Obama Administration can be said to have adopted a two-pronged approach to China: reaffirming and strengthening

cooperative ties while simultaneously establishing a strong and credible American presence across Asia to encourage constructive Chinese behavior and to provide confidence to regional leaders who wish to resist potential Chinese regional hegemony. In the Administrations early statements about the pivot toward the Asia Pacific, it often seemed that the second prong was more prominent. However, before a February 2012 White House meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is anticipated to replace Hu Jintao as president later this year, President Obama sought to restore a balance between the two prongs, stating that for the United States to strengthen relationships in the region, boost trade and commerce, and be a strong and effective partner with the Asia Pacific region ... it is absolutely vital that we have a strong relationship with China. Seeking to reassure China, Obama also said he has alwaysemphasized that we welcome Chinas peaceful rise, that we believe that a strong and prosperous China is one that can help to bring stability and prosperity to the region and to the world.48 At an official level, China has so far

responded relatively cautiously to the U.S. shift in regional emphasis. In remarks during his February 2012U.S. trip, Vice President Xi said, China welcomes a constructive role by the United States in promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific, while, At the same time, we hope the United States will respect the interests and concerns of China and other countries in this region.49 Also notable is wording in Chinese Premier Wen Jiabaos annual report to Chinas parliament, delivered on March 5, 2012, stating that, peace, development, and cooperation remain the underlying trends of the times, and overall the situation is favorable for Chinas peaceful development. That official Chinese assessment of the international environment facing China was similar to the assessment contained in the Premiers 2011 report, suggesting that, so far at least, China does not consider the U.S. announcement of the rebalancing to Asia to have significantly eroded Chinas external environment.50

[insert plan hurts relations with China]

***Impacts

ImpactGlobal EconomyEffective Asia pivot key to the global economyRichard N. Haass 11, former director of policy planning in the US State Department, is President of the Council on Foreign Relations, November 14, 2011, Re-Orienting America, online: http://www.cfr.org/us-strategy-and-politics/re-orientingamerica/p26490 Something akin to this mistake has befallen American foreign policy. The United States has become preoccupied

with the Middle East in certain ways, the wrong Orient and has not paid adequate attention to East Asia and the Pacific, where much of the twenty-first century's history will be written. The good news is that this focus is shifting. Indeed, a quiet transformation is taking place in American foreign policy, one that is as significant as it is overdue. The US has rediscovered Asia. "Rediscovered" is theoperative word here. Asia was one of the two principal theaters of World War II, and again shared centrality with Europe during the Cold War. Indeed, the period's two greatest conflicts the wars in Korea and Vietnam were fought on the Asian mainland. But, with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, Asia receded from American interest. In the first decade of the post-Cold War era, the US trained much of its attention on Europe. American policymakers focused primarily on enlarging NATO to encompass many of the former Warsaw Pact countries, and on contending with the postYugoslav wars. The second phase of the post-Cold War era began with the 9/11 terror attacks. What followed was a decade of US focus on terrorism and the large-scale commitment of American military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. The two conflicts have claimed more than 6,000 American lives, cost more than $1 trillion, and consumed countless hours for two presidents and their senior staff. But now this phase of American foreign policy is ending. President Barack Obama has announced that US armed forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. In Afghanistan, US force levels have peaked and are declining; the only questions concern the pace of withdrawal and the size and role of any residual US military presence after 2014. This is not to argue that the Middle East is irrelevant or that the US should ignore it. On the contrary, it is still home to massive oil and gas reserves. It is a part of the world where terrorists are active and conflicts have been common. Iran is moving ever closer to developing nuclear weapons; if it does, others may well follow suit. And it is a region now experiencing what could prove to be historic domestic political upheavals. There is also the unique American tie to Israel. Nevertheless, there are grounds for the US doing less in the greater Middle East than it has in

recent years: the weakening of al-Qaeda; the poor prospects for peacemaking efforts; and, above all, the mounting evidence that, by any measure, massive nation-building initiatives are not yielding returns commensurate with the investments. At the same time, there are strong arguments for greater US involvement in the Asia-Pacific region. With its large populations and fast-growing

economies , it is difficult to exaggerate the region's economic importance. American companies

export more than $300 billion in goods and services to countries in the region each year. Meanwhile, Asian

countries are a critical source of investment for the US economy. Maintaining regional stability is thus critical for US (and global) economic success . The US has multiple alliance obligations with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand which are needed, in part, to deter North Korean aggression. Moreover, US policy must create an environment in which a rising China is never tempted to use its growing power coercively within or outside theregion. For this reason, recent US efforts to strengthen ties with India and several Southeast Asian countries make good

US is right to shift its focus from the Middle East to the Far East . The good news is that this conclusion seems to be shared across the US political spectrum. Mitt Romney, thesense. The likely Republican nominee for president, pledges to increase the rate of shipbuilding a commitment linked to an increased US presence in the Pacific. And US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks of America pivoting away from the greater Middle East: "The world's strategic and economic center of gravity is shifting east, and we are focusing more on the AsiaPacific region." Regardless of whether the twenty-first century will be another "American century," it is certain that it will be an Asian and Pacific century. It is both natural and sensible that the US be central to whatever evolves from that fact.

Failed Asia pivot collapses hegrisks miscal

Macgregor 2012Douglas A. Mcgregor, contributor and is executive vice president of Burke-Macgregor Group, LLC, retired Army colonel, decorated combat veteran and the author of four books on military affairs, 10/26, Affording the Pacific Pivot, http://nation.time.com/2012/10/26/affording-the-pacific-pivot/ In the turbulent decade leading up to the outbreak of World War I, Winston Churchill, Britains First Lord of the A dmiralty, urged Britains national leadership to concentrate British naval power in the Atlantic and the North Sea where Germanys

rapidly expanding high seas fleet seemed determined to challenge British naval supremacy. Churchill reasoned, It would be very foolish to lose England in safeguarding Egypt. If we win the big battle in the decisive theater, we can put everything else straight afterwards. If we lose it, there will not be any afterwards. On the precipice of sequestration and with the surviva l of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid at stake, Churchills strategic rationale is instructive, particularly

for leaders in Washington, D.C., who advocate a U.S. military buildup in the Pacific. When Churchill made the case for concentrating the British fleet in the Atlantic, he was practicing economy of force, a time honored principle in British military affairs. In 1902, in the midst of a financialcrisis brought on, in part, by the Boer War, London had already turned to Japan for military assistance in blocking Russian expansion in the Far East. By 1911, the Russian threat had disappeared beneath the waters of the Tsushima Strait, but the Anglo-Japanese Treaty still allowed the withdrawal of British naval and ground forces from Asia, facilitating the concentration of British military power in the Atlantic. The result was a debilitating blockade Germany

could not overcome throughout the First World War.Like the British at the beginning of the 20th Century, Washington suffers from a case of Imperial Overstretch. Washington needs a new national security strategy, one designed to halt the dissipation of American military resources around the world and to concentrate it wherever it is needed. For the moment, the point of concentration is Asia, where Chinas assertiveness opens the door to the kind of instability and potential for strategic miscalculation that is eerily similar to the crises and conflicts that preceded the outbreak of World War I in Europe.

ImpactUS-China War/Asia Stability

Credible commitment key to prevent China war and maintain Asian stabilityRudd 13Kevin, Member of the Australian Parliament, Beyond the Pivot: A New Road Map for U.S. -Chinese Relations Feb 26, http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/beyond-the-pivot-a-new-road-map-for-u-s-chinese-relations/ ///cmf Debate about the future of U.S.-Chinese relations is currently being driven by a more assertive

Chinese foreign and security policy over the last decade, the region's reaction to this, and Washington's response -- the "pivot," or "rebalance," to Asia. The Obama administration's renewed focus on the strategic significance of Asia has been entirely appropriate. Without such a move, there was a danger that China, with its hard-line, realist view of international relations, would conclude that an economically exhausted United States was losing its staying power in the Pacific. But nowthat it is clear that the United States will remain in Asia for the long haul, the time has come for both Washington and Beijing to take stock, look ahead, and reach some long-term conclusions as to what sort of world they want to see beyond the

central tasks in the decades ahead are avoiding a major confrontation between the United States and China and preserving the strategic stability that has underpinned regional prosperity. These tasks are difficult but doable. They will require both parties to understand each other thoroughly, to act calmly despite multiple provocations, and to manage the domestic and regional forces that threaten to pull them apart. This, in turn, will require a deeper and morebarricades. Asia's

institutionalized relationship -- one anchored in a strategic framework that accepts the reality of competition, the importance of cooperation, and the fact that these are not mutually exclusive propositions. Such a new approach, furthermore, should be given practical effect through a structured agenda driven by regular direct meetings between the two countries' leaders.

ImpactAsia StabilityObamas attention and continued pursuit of engagement and presence in Asia key to credible pivot and stabilityMunoz 13Carlos, Donilon: US remains 'all in' on shift to Asia, March-11, http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/287377donilon-us-remains-all-in-on-shift-to-asia-#ixzz2YD4zH0FP ///cmf The Obama administration remains fully committed to seeing though the Pentagon's proposed strategic shift

from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Asia-Pacific region, a top White House official said this week. "President Obama has been clear about the future that the United States seeks . . . when it comes to the Asia-Pacific, the United States is 'all in,'" National SecurityAdviser Thomas Donilon said during a speech at the Asia Society in New York on Monday. President Obama announced the strategic shift to Asia last February, as part of the administration's realignment of national security priorities for a postAfghanistan and post-Iraq world. However, the recent rise of Islamic extremists groups in North and West Africa have prompted some inside the beltway to question whether a strategic shift to the Pacific is the right move. On Monday, Donilon pushed back on such assertions, arguing Asia's influence on the world stage will only increase in the coming years. According to Donilon, nearly half of all economic growth and subsequent global politicall influence will emanate from regional Pacific powers over the next five years. That growth, he added, "is fueling powerful geopolitical forces that are reshaping the region" including Chinas ascent as a world power, North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and India's expanding influence in South Asia and beyond. "These changes are unfolding at a time when Asias economic, diplomatic and political rules of the road are still taking shape," he added. "The stakes for people on both sides of the Pacific are profound." Recognizing that sea change of global influence based in the Asia-Pacific region, the Obama

administration has taken great strides to solidify the United States' position in that corner of the world, according to Donilon. "Perhaps most telling [of] this rebalance is reflected in the most valuable commodity in Washington, the Presidents time ," he said. The Obama administrationofficials have held bilateral talks with each regional partner in the Pacific, as well as fully participated in the multilateral summits held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Specifically, the White House has engaged "at an unprecedented pace" with Washington's counterparts in China, holding formal and informal talks with Beijing on a slew of regional security issued, according to Donilon. "The United States welcomes the rise of a peaceful, prosperous China. We

do not want our relationship to become defined by rivalry and confrontation," Donilon said, reiterating the administration's line on the Asian powerhouse. "There is nothing preordained about such an outcome," he said regarding a possible boiling over of tensions between Washington and Beijing. China took a step forward toward that burgeoning relationship with the United States, backing Washington onnew United Nations sanctions against North Korea's nuclear program. In response, Pyongyang on Monday officially nullified the 1953 armistice deal with the United States that ended the Korean War. Since North and South Korea are still technically at war, it remains to be seen if the decision will result in conflict breaking out on the peninsula. However tensions continue over Beijing's continued efforts to launch cyberattacks against American government and commercial networks. In February, security firm Mandiant released a report on Chinese cyberwarfare capabilities, claiming elite military unit of Chinese hackers have been working to break into U.S. networks from their headquarters in Shanghai. Weeks after the Mandiant report, Senate intelligence committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said classified intelligence documents supported the claims made by the security firm. Despite those reports, Donilon said the United States

continued cooperation with Beijing and its influence in Asia is and will be key to maintaining stability among the regional Pacific powers. "The regions success . . . and the United States security and prosperity in the 21st century, still depend on the presence

and engagement of the United States in Asia," he said. " We are a resident Pacific power, resilient andindispensable."

Asian instability escalates to global nuclear war

Landay, National Security and Intelligence Correspondent, 2K(Jonathan S., Top administration officials warn stakes for U.S. are high in Asian conflicts, 3 -10, Knight Ridder/Tribune News) Accessed on LexisNexis 12-29-09

Few if any experts think China and Taiwan, North Korea and South Korea, or India and Pakistan are spoiling to fight. But even a minor miscalculation by any of them could destabilize Asia, jolt the global economy and even start a nuclear war. India, Pakistan and

China all have nuclear weapons, and North Korea may have a few, too. Asia lacks the kinds of organizations, negotiations and diplomatic relationships that helped keep an uneasy peace for five decades in Cold War Europe. "Nowhere else on Earth are the stakes as high and relationships so fragile," said Bates Gill, director of northeast Asian policy studies at the BrookingsInstitution, a Washington think tank. "We see the convergence of great power interest overlaid with lingering confrontations with no institutionalized security mechanism in place. There are elements for potential disaster." In an effort to cool the region's tempers, President Clinton, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger all will hopscotch Asia's capitals this month. For America, the stakes could hardly be higher. There are 100,000 U.S.

troops in Asia committed to defending Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, and the United States would instantly become embroiled if Beijing moved against Taiwan or North Korea attacked South Korea. While Washington has no defense commitments to either India or Pakistan, a conflict between the two could end the global taboo against using nuclear weapons and demolish the already shaky international nonproliferation regime. In addition, globalization has made a stable Asia _ with its massive markets, cheap labor, exports and resources _ indispensable to the U.S. economy. Numerous U.S. firms and millions of American jobs depend on trade withAsia that totaled $600 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department.

ImpactAllied ProlifAsia pivot key to assure allies and prevent adventurism and prolifGreitens 13Sheena Chestnut Greitens, U.S.-China Relations and Americas Alliances in Asia june-13, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/06/11-us-china-relations-asia-alliances-greitens /// cmf Less fear and more trust are indeed likely to contribute to a constructive U.S.-China relationship. But the

principal

foreign policy challenge facing the United States in Asia today is not the creation of strategic trust between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, or between the United States and China. It is the challenge of alliance

management : to reassure Americas allies without emboldening them toward

unnecessary adventurism, and to use those alliances to deter potential adversaries without provoking them into spirals of conflict. Wise and steady management of U.S. alliances in Asia will make Americas interests and commitments clear, and help shape the level of conflict or cooperation in the U.S.-China relationship for years to come.

Allied prolif causes nuclear war

Lee 93Steven Lee, Professor, Ethics, Hobart and Smith College, Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons, 1993, p. 299. First, nuclear war could result from the behavior of other states, especially those that

had formerly seen themselves as receiving protection from the nation's opponent under the nuclear umbrella. Some of theses states might well seek to acquire nuclear weapons, or toenlarge their arsenals if they were already nuclear powers, in order to provide better protection of their own against the opponent. Were such armament to occur, the uncertainties on all sides may make major nuclear war

more likely that it was prior to the nation's unilateral nuclear disarmament.

There is a nagging fear in South East Asian capitals on the intensity and longevity of the US strategic pivot to Asia fearing that both as a result of the US traditional China Hedging Strategy and also because of domestic budget cuts in defence spending, the US commitment to South China Sea security may be a transient phase. How would the United States assure South East Asian countries of its resolve to contain China within its national boundaries and not let it spill its military adventurism in SouthChina Sea region and in South East Asia as a whole? The United States needs to remember how China muscled into South East Asia in the last decade or so when the region lay neglected by the United States. The United States could let South East Asia remain in benign neglect because during that period Chinas military and naval build -up levis were still maturing. In 2013 Chinas military and naval build-up has reached alarming levels and consequently China has already put the United States on notice that at least in the Western Pacific wherein lies the South China Sea conflictual region is located, China is no longer a military push-over or subject to US political and military coercion. The United States can no longer

persist in following its traditional China Hedging Strategy and Risk Aversion Strategy towards China. Persisting in doing so could end up in denting United States image of a credible strategic partner in Asian capitals and endanger its continued embedment in Asia.South China Sea conflicts stood ignited by Chinas military brinkmanship and Chinas military adventurism to which the United States responded by its strategic pivot to Asia Pacific. In 2013 a higher call now awaits the United States in checkmating Chinas military adventurism by shedding ambiguity from its South China Sea policies. The United States needs to take advantage of the Asian strategic polarisation which the China-generated South China Sea conflicts have brought in its wake in favour of the United States. Robert Kaplan, the noted US Author and expert on strategic affairs has wisely observed that: Just as German soil constituted the military frontline of the Cold War, the waters of the South China Sea may constitute the military frontlines in the coming decades. Worldwide multipolarity is already a feature of diplomacy and economics but the South China Sea could show what multipolarity in a military sense actually looks like United States, it is your call now.

ImpactIndo-China WarThe Asia Pivot will encourage stronger relations between India and China, preventing future conflict between the two countriesFranz-Stefan Gady, (military analyst and world affairs commentator), 3/18/13, Huffington Post, "consequences of obama's asia pivot," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/franzstefan-gady/obama-china-india_b_2853600.html In the kaleidoscopic world of power politics in Asia, the United States' pivot to that region may yield the

unintentional consequences of fostering closer strategic ties between the two Asian giants -China and India -- which could result in a strategic alliance ostensibly hostile to Western interests in the region. Analysts will be quick to point out that the 'all weather friendship' between the two countries, has hit a natural ceiling due to the strategic competition between the (re)emerging powers. For example, China isdeepening its ties with Pakistan militarily (both countries signed a military cooperation agreement in September 2012), provides nuclear support, and has finally taken over management of the port of Gwadar on Pakistan's Makran coast. India on the other hand is trying to counter China's influence in Asia by fostering closer ties with the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), especially in the field of naval cooperation, which adversely affects China's position in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Both countries' increasing energy demands also put the two giants on a collision course. Yet, a 'diplomatic revolution' may be in the making should the United States decide

to overplay its hand during President Obama's second term. The United States assigns a key role to India inits turn towards Asia, which in almost its entirety is aimed at balancing China's influence in the region. Nevertheless, as India's former Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, points out: "India is already distancing itself from the pivot by the notable friendly discourse towards China." The reasons for this are complex, yet they are in large part based on the gradual waning of U.S. influence in the region and the fact that geographical proximity between India and China mandates some sort of rapprochement for the sake of both countries' economic development. The original 'diplomatic revolution' occurred in 1756 on the eve of the Seven Year's War between France and the Austrian Empire. In a reversal of alliances, Austria abandoned its long-term ally, Great Britain, for its most formidable continental rival, France, thereby breaking with its traditional foreign policy doctrine. The principal reason was Austria's gradual realization that Britain, primarily a sea power, could or would not adequately be able to support its ally militarily in a new European war. Great Britain's real diplomatic ambitions were overseas. The Austro-French alliance was in many ways counterproductive and an unhappy experience for both countries. Because of their divergent interests and continuing rivalry, both parties paralyzed each other, and they could not effectively cooperate during the Seven Years War (1756-1763). Dr. Marco Cesa in his book "Allies Yet Rivals - International Politics in 18th Century Europe" referred to the Austro-French alliance as a "deadlocked alliance," in which both parties decided to "preserve their union, since their alliance gave each a means with which to control the other, and also because without such an alliance they would probably have ended up fighting each other." Paul W. Schroeder called this a "pact for management and mutual restraint of one's partner, not for capability aggregation and aggrandizement." Similar to Austria's realization in 1756, India may think that she is better off seeking closer ties to a continental military power and a

neighbor, rather than an Asia Pacific sea power such as the United States, which may not have the stomach tocompete with China's power projection capabilities on mainland Asia. However, should China and India move closer together, the result in all likelihood will be a form of a deadlocked alliance in which both countries, similar to Austria and France, will be at loggerheads with each other. Yet, there are very good strategic reasons for both

countries to move closer. As D.S. Rajan points out: "Beijing and New Delhi share the same views on two keyfactors forming the basis for partnership -- multilateralism and economic cooperation." Both are interested in peace in their respective peripheries and a 'peaceful rise.' Both depend on each other for economic development. For example, 80 percent of China's total oil import passes in proximity to India's southern coast through the straits of Malacca. More importantly in the short run are China's deteriorating relations with Japan and the United States' grand strategy for Asia during President Obama's second term, both of which will weigh heavy on Beijing's motivation to create a Indo-Sino alliance. Already in 2005, China and India have formed a "strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity" and held various bilateral discussions on their future strategic partnership. In January 2013, during the fifth annual Indo-Sino defense dialogue both countries agreed to resume joint military exercises. There are a host of issues that could undermine

closer Indo-Sino relations in the years to come such as unresolved border issues, ChinaPakistan relations, energy security, cyber-espionage, Tibet, India's eastward expansion of its economic ties and Myamar just to name a few examples, where both countries' interests are at variance. For

the sake of stability, the United States should encourage closer Indo-China ties . Austria and France were at peace between 1756 to 1792, not a small achievement given thevolatility of European power politics at the time. Once

the alliance dissolved in 1792 both countries

which lasted until 1815. Closer

were involved in a life and death struggle,

Indo-Sino ties

mean a more stable Asian security environment based on mutual restraint, and - because of the inherentnature of a deadlocked alliance -- little growth of both Indian and Chinese power.

Sino-Indian war is the highest risk for nuclear conflict.

Sullivan 10 research fellow @ AEITim Sullivan, research fellow and program manager at the American Enterprise Institutes Centre for Defence Studies. The next nuclear arms race. Pakistan Observer. 9/29/10. Lexis. India and Pakistan are the two countries most likely to engage in nuclear war or so goes the common wisdom. Yet if recent events are any indication, the worlds most vigorous nuclear competition may well erupt between

Asias two giants: India and China. Both countries already house significant and growing arsenals. China is estimated to have approximately 450 warheads; India, roughly 100. Though intensifying as of late, Sino-Indian nuclear competition has a long history: Indias pursuit of a weapons program in the 1960s was triggered in part by Chinas initial nuclear tests, and the two have eyed one anothers arsenals with mounting concern ever since. The competition intensified in 2007, when China began to upgrade missile facilities near Tibet, placing targets in northern India within range of its forces. Yet the stakes have been raised yet again in recent months. Indian defence minister A.K. Antony announced last month that the military will soonincorporate into its arsenal a new intermediate-range missile, the Agni-III, which is capable of reaching all of Chinas major cities. Delhi is also reportedly considering redeploying survivable, medium-range Agni-IIs to its northeastern border. And just last month, India shifted a squadron of Su-30MKI fighters to a base just 150 kilometers from the disputed Sino-Indian border. An Indian Air Force official told Defence News these nuclear-armed planes could operate deep within China with mid-flight refueling. For its part, China continues to enhance the quality, quantity and delivery

systems of its nuclear forces. The Pentagon reported last month that the Peoples Liberation Army has replaced older, vulnerable ballistic missiles deployed in Western China with modern, survivable ones; this transition has taken place over the last four years. Chinas Hainan Island naval base houses new, nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines and affords those boats easy access to the Indian Ocean. Chinas military is also developing a new, longer range submarine-launched ballistic missile which will allow its subs to strike targets throughout India from the secure confines of the South China Sea. No single event has stoked this rise in tensions. China, already concerned about Indias growing strength and its desire to play a greater role in Asia, is even less enthused about theburgeoning strategic partnership between Delhi and Washington. While Beijing has learned to live with American forces on its eastern periphery, the possibility of an intimate US-India military relationship has generated fears of encirclement. The ongoing Sino-Indian border dispute, as well as Indias position astride Chinas key maritime shipping lanes, has made the prospect of a Washington-Delhi axis appear particularly troubling. India likewise feels encircled by Chinas so-called string of pearls: a series of Chinese-built, ostensibly commercial port facilities in the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Beijings military ties to Pakistan, interference in the Kashmir dispute and references to Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state, as Southern Tibet have done little to reassure New Delhi of Chinese intentions. The rapid growth of Chinas conventional military might in recent years: between 2000 and 2009, Chinas military spending more than tripled: and the lack of clarity as to its intentions, has spurred India to pursue its own military modernization. These shifts in Indias and Chinas

nuclear force postures thus represent only the latest and most serious efforts to constrain and convey dissatisfaction with the others perceived regional ambitions. But they are more troubling than conventional redeployments. There is a point at which efforts to enhance deterrence can foster an arms race. Any attempt on the part of China to increase its own defenses necessarily weakens, or is perceived to weaken, the security of India, thus spurring further defence build-ups; the opposite is true as well. Shifts in nuclear force posture can be particularly disruptive, and have been known to precipitate crises. Upon thediscovery of Soviet efforts to deploy missiles to Cuba in 1962, for example, the US responded militarily with a naval quarantine of the island, bringing Washington and Moscow as close as they have ever come to a nuclear war. Finally, the redeployments of Indias and Chinas nuclear forces suggest that there is deep-seated and growing discord between the two Asian giants. This is troubling news for a region whose future peace and prosperity depends heavily on continued comity between Delhi and Beijing. It is only a matter of time before the China-India military competition begins to affect neighboring states. Chinas nuclear force modernization, for instance, stands to threaten not only India, but also Korea, Japan and other US partners in Asia. A dramatic defence build-up in India, meanwhile, will no doubt leave Pakistan feeling less secure. Tensions are unlikely to ease any time soon. The two countries appear much closer to the brink of

an all-out arms race than they do to any resolution of their differences. While each profits from theothers economic growth, it is that very growth: which finances military modernization and which is so dependent on potentially vulnerable overseas trade: that creates the conditions for heightened insecurity.

ImpactNorth Korea War

North Korean aggression on the brinksmall conflicts will escalate to all out nuclear waronly completing the pivot solvesKlingner 13Bruce, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation , The U.S. and Its Allies Need a Strong Defense, March-11, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/03/11/will-south-korea-and-japan-take-the-nuclear-route/us-and-its-alliesneed-strong-military-to-deter-north-korean-threat ///cmf So much for basketball diplomacy. Self-appointed ambassador Dennis Rodmans trip to Pyongyang didnt keep his new B.F.F., North

Korean leader Kim Jong-un, from threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike that would turn Washington into a sea of flames. Rodmans trip can be written off as narcissistic self-promotion. But Kims bombastic rhetoric shouldnt be dismissed so easily. Pyongyangs two deadly acts of war against South Korea in 2010 and its long history of terrorist acts show the regime often follows through on its threats. A nuclear attack on the United States or full-scale invasion of South Korea remains highly unlikely, however, as either would ensure North Koreas destruction. But it is only a matter of time before the regime launches another tactical-level attack on the South. There is now a greater risk of miscalculation and escalation, due to new leaders in both Koreas. Kim Jong-un lacks experience and may stumble across red lines that his predecessors would have known not to cross. Moreover, he may be emboldened by North Koreas new nuclear muscle and the knowledge that neither Washington nor Seoul ever responded to previous attacks. Newly inaugurated South Korean President Park Geun-hye criticized her countrys past passivity and vowed to hit back hard and exponentially in case of another attack. The danger is that even a low-level retaliation could escalate into an all-out

conflict . As a U.S. general on the peninsula warned, Before you start even a limited response, you better be prepared togo all-in. Since repeated diplomatic efforts have failed to curb North Koreas reckless behavior, the

United States and its allies need strong military forces to protect themselves. Unfortunately, President Obamas Asia Pivot was, itself, little more than rhetoric. Not a single unit will pivot from Afghanistan, Iraq or Europe into the Pacific. And massive defense budget cuts undermine U.S. military capabilities and credibility.

Optimists place too much faith in international institutions, too much faith in the idea that economic growth in China will necessarily lead to democratization there, and too much faith inthe idea that a demo- cratic China necessarily would be at peace with American military domination of Asia. As a general proposition, optimists tend to elide the zero-sum tradeoffs inherent to military issues, ignoring for the most part the question of U.S. military policy in Asia. This leaves one of the most important questions about the future of American foreign policy in Asia outside their analysis. As Columbias Richard Betts writes in a stinging critique, John Ikenberry . . . says nothing about what U.S. military policy should be in [East Asia], dismisses the whole dimension of analysis with the fac- ile assumption that mutual nuclear deterrence precludes major war, and asserts with breathtaking confidence that war -driven change has been abolished as a historical process.32 Powerful states tend not to rely on other states or

international institutions to provide security for them. Even states with benign motives today may pose threats tomorrow , and international institutions matter only in so far as they can enforce the rules they write. The United States regularly defies international institutions when it believes they do not serve U.S. interests, whether the topic is attacking Kosovo or Iraq, avoidingactions to try to prevent climate change, re- solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, or any number of other issues. Should China continue to grow more powerful, international institutions are likely to have a similar effect on

Beijing as they have had on Washington: not much . States prefer to rely on their own capabilities and to exert control over their security environment. Also, as their power grows, states tend to expand their definition of their interests and use their power to pursue them. American policymakers ignore or downplay these realities, implying instead that China is a free rider on U.S. promotion of global- ization and international trade. Secretary of State Clinton almost made it sound asthough the Chinese should send Washington a thank you note: Like so many other countries before it, China has prospered as part of the open and rules-based system that the United States helped to build and works to sustain.33 But just as the United States today chooses to sus- tain the open and rules-based system, so too can it exclude China from that system or violate its own rules if it so chooses. What Ameri- can analysts see as Chinese free riding, many

Chinese view as dangerous vulnerability to the whims of U.S. policymakers. Recent months have indicated that growing Chinese power has generated hardening Chinese territorial demands, and a greater desire to pursue them. During that time, China has reiterated its claimsto nearly all of the South China Sea, in at least partial contravention of both the sta- tus quo and maritime law. It has established a new military garrison on Yongxing, one of the islands there, it has engaged in a naval standoff with the Philippines at Scarborough Shoal, and Chinas efforts to fend off criticism precluded even a joint statement at the Asso ciation of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, the first time in the organizations his- tory it has failed to do so.34

2NC AT China War Turn

Only a risk of China retaliation if the pivot isn't completely credible rhetoric, resources, and diplomatic capital must all be directed at AsiaLieberthal 11Kenneth, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, The American Pivot to Asia, Dec-21, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/21/the_american_pivot_to_asia?page=0,4 ///cmf A tougher line may in fact produce more constructive Chinese behavior if it convinces

Beijing that America retains the capacity to lead in Asia over the long run and is willing to encourageChina's ongoing development so long as that does not produce behavior that challenges America's overall position or vital interests in the region. China's leaders are, after all, very pragmatic. They are unlikely to "take on"

the United States if America has adopted a strategically coherent Asia strategy that is widely respected and viewed as credible in the region. Rhetoric and diplomacy, after all, can shape perceptions and expectations and thus are important determinants of foreign-policy outcomes. But over time credibility is crucial, and credibility requires demonstrably having the resources and capabilities to implement the overall strategy over the long run.

2NC AT China Relations Turn

The pivot bolsters relationsStatis 13(G. Michael [Prof of Political Science and IR @ Southern Utah U]; Imperial Restoration; www.old.li.suu.edu/library/circulation/Stathis/StathisImperialRestoration.pdf; kdf) On the one hand, there is the China that appears put out that American foreign policy tends to be overly aggressive, if not hostile to Beijing.72 In this vein, Hillary Clinton was not all that popular in Beijing. But then as recent headlines hold, China should not be regarded as friendly either.73 In this case there needs be a stern but engaged policy.74 For over two decades

the United States has embraced a positive policy of trade and engagement with regular balancing, meaning that now and again issues have had to be addressed, Chinas massive bilateral trade surplus with the United States and Beijings accumulation of dollar-denominated assets are thus worrisome for reasons that transcend economics.75 Thus a significant part of Obamas Asia Pivot is an attempt to improve relations with China by encouraging her to be more open to being an equal player in the global economy, but also note this policy included a movement of American naval strength to Asia.76

***AFF Answers

***Uniqueness

2AC No PivotSyriaPivot away from Middle East impossibleSyria guarantees huge security roleHunter 5/5Robert, former US ambassador to NATO and Director of West European Affairs and Director of Middle East Affairs, President Obama: Keep Your Nerve on Syria, may-5, http://www.lobelog.com/president-obama-keep-your-nerve-on-syria/ /// cmf Then a final dilemma: the US desire to pivot to Asia. But at least some refocusing of policy

and military assets will not be as easily done as has been hoped with the end of the Iraq War, thewinding down of the Afghanistan War and the efforts to keep Iran from crossing either US or Israeli red lines on its nuclear program. With Syria and its interlocking dilemmas, plus other continuing challenges in the

region, the US will not be able to rid itself of a major security role in the Middle East anytime soon, even if it (rightly) promotes an international approach to even some of these dilemmas, no matter how much oil and gas is eventually produced in the continental US.

2AC Link Non-Unique

Link is non-uniqueObama already heavily focused and engaged in Latin AmericaAndrews 6/9Anna, former ambassador to Costa Rica, interview conducted by David Boddiger, U.S. ambassador in Costa Rica wraps up term this week, http://www.ticotimes.net/More-news/News-Briefs/U.S.-ambassador-in-Costa-Rica-wraps-up-term-this-week_Sunday-June-092013 ///cmf President Obamas visit to Costa Rica in early May was pretty significant in that many Central Americans felt they were being ignored by his administration. Does

his visit indicate a renewed commitment to or interest in the region? I am aware that there are those who have questioned whether President Obama was committed to Latin America. What I think is evident from the presidents visit here is it gave us a chance to really look more carefully at the presidents commitment to Latin America, and what I found is that President Obama in 2009, on one of his first trips outside the U.S., went to the Summit of the Americas. At that summit, he outlined his vision for a new partnership with Latin America and a commitment to partner for the benefit of all the people of the Americas.What weve seen between the time that Obama went to the first Summit of the Americas to his visit here in Costa Rica is that the president has visited the Latin American region six times in five years, and that early in his second administration, one of the first trips hes

taken is to come back to the region and reiterate his continued support. The investments we have been making in Latin America and Central America in the areas of security, trade and education are really significant. I think often times we dont have time to gather the facts and, therefore, we make conclusions based on less than the full information. But I think that if you look at the presidents early commitment, his vision, and the investments we have been making, I think it makes his visit to Costa Rica, rather than coming back to or renewing, its really a continuation and a highlighting of the presidents commitment to this region.

***Thumpers

2AC Middle East Generic Thumper

Despite rhetoric of pivoting to Asia, Middle East conflicts will keep the US embroiled thereBurns 7/5Nicholas, GlobalPost senior foreign affairs columnist, is professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Why Egypt matters to the US, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpostblogs/commentary/why-egypt-matters-to-united-states ///cmf Washington cannot focus its energies on all 22 Arab states simultaneously, and Egypt should be the

overwhelming priority. That is one reason why staying involved in Egypt, making a substantial increase in Americaneconomic aid, and resolving to make a much greater effort to support democratic forces there is so important. Second, this weeks events in Egypt also remind us, once again, of the continued importance of the Middle East to American interests. The Obama administration announced in 2011 a major shift in American foreign policy toward

Asia. It was widely understood to be a pivot from our decades-long involvement in the turbulent Middle East to a priority focus on Asia, with a rising China challenging us for global power. Theinstinct that Asia will be the most important region for American engagement in this century is not wrong. It is just premature. Events in Egypt and the continued challenges of the bloody civil war in Syria, the long-standing

Israeli-Palestinian struggle, and a recalcitrant Iran mean the US will be more occupied on a daily basis with the problems of the Middle East than any other region for at least the rest of the decade and probably well beyond. Americas vital interests are still very much on the line there. The regions poverty, instability, energy resources, growing Shia-Sunni divide and revolutionary ferment all point to a continuing American preoccupation. Any dream of a sharp shift of American attention away from the Middle East is illusory.

1AR Syria Thumper

Obama focusing all diplomatic capital and military resources on Syrialoss of credibility non-unique-Tanks credibility

Cooke 6/23Shamus, Syria Is Becoming Obama's Iraq, http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17160-syria-is-becoming-obamas-iraq ///cmf In perfect Bush-like fashion, President Obama has invented a bogus pretense for military intervention in yet another Middle East country. The presidents claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons - and thus crossed Obamas imaginary red line - will likely fool very few Americans, who already distrust their president after the massive NSA spying scandal. Obama has officially started down a path that inevitably leads to full-scale war. At this point the

Obama administration thinks it has already invested too much military, financial, and diplomatic capital into the Syrian conflict to turn back, and each step forward brings the U.S. closer to a direct military intervention. Much like Obamas spying program, few Americans knewthat the United States was already involved, neck deep, with the mass killings occurring in Syria. For example, Obama has been directly arming the Syrian rebels for well over a year. The New York Times broke the story that the Obama administration has - through the CIA - been illegally trafficking thousands of tons of guns to the rebels from the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. If not for these Obama-trafficked guns, thousands of deaths would have been prevented and the Syrian conflict over. But even after the gun trafficking story broke, the mainstream media largely ignored it, and continued reporting that the U.S. has only been supplying the Syrian rebels with no n-lethal aid, a meaningless term in a war setting, since all military aid directly assists in the business of killing. The U.S. media also buried the truth behind the ridiculous chemical weapons claims by the Obama administration, which, like Bushs WMDs , are based on absolutely no evidence. Having learned nothing from Iraq, the U.S. media again shamelessly regurgitates the facts as spoon -fed to them by the government, no questions asked. In reality, however, a number of independent chemical weapons experts have publicly spoken out against Obamas accusations. The U.S. media also refuses to ask: on what authority does the United States have to determine the usage of chemical weapons in other countries? This is the job of the UN. What has the UN said on the matter? Top UN rights investigator Carla del Ponte said: According to the testimonies we have gathered, the [Syrian] rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas. Again, the rebels have used chemical weapons, not the Syrian government, according to the UN representative. Many analysts have pointed out the obvious fact that the Syrian government would have zero military or political motive to use chemical weapons, especially when they have access to much more effective conventional weapons. Obamas Bush-like lies are too familiar to the American public, who overwhelmingly do not support military intervention in Syria, or giving direct military aide to the Syrian rebels. What has the UN said on giving military aid to the rebels? UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called the Obamas decision a bad idea and not helpful. This is because pouring arms into any country where there is a conflict only increases the bloodshed and risks turning the conflict into a broader catastrophe. But like Bush, Obama is ignoring the UN, and theres a logic to his madness. Obama

has invested too much of his foreign policy credibility in Syria. His administration has been thebackbone of the Syrian rebels from the beginning, having handpicked a group of rich Syrian exiles and molded them into Obamas officially recognized government of Syria, while pressuring other nations to also recognize these nobodies as the legitimate Syrian government. Assads iron grip on power is a humiliation to these diplomatic

efforts of Obama, and has thus weakened the prestige and power of U.S. foreign policy abroad.

President Mahmoud Abbas are both being tested politically in pursuit of a two-state peace solution. Kerry is in the region for talks with both men, his fifth visit in as many months.Continuing his shuttle diplomacy, Kerry says Netanyahu and Abbas share "a serious commitment of purpose" in the face of considerable political challenges to Mideast peace. "The politics of both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas have both been tested, as they always are in this part of the world," said Kerry. Kerry is making getting Israelis

and Palestinians back to talks a priority . It is the fifth time in as many months that he has visited the region. Since Kerry began the diplomatic push, more conservative members ofNetanyahu's ruling coalition have pronounced the two-state solution dead. Abbas is under pressure to show results for his non-violent approach, having accepted his newly-appointed prime minister's resignation after just three weeks in office. But Kerry said both men are skilled political veterans who believe the peace process "is more important to their countries than some of their current political challenges may make it seem." "President Abbas has been at this a long time. He has been motivated by the desire to try to create his country, to give the Palestinians their homeland, to define it, and to be able to meet the needs of his people," Kerry said. As Israel's second-longest serving prime minister, Netanyahu knows what is at stake, Kerry said. "He understands how volatile the region is, what the complications and threats are to Israel, the downsides of failure. And I think he understands that this is a serious moment," the secretary said. Kerry

said the Obama

administration is determined to keep working toward Mideast peace, but it is up to Abbas and Netanyahu to make the hard choices. "In the end, they will have to make key decisions about whether or whether not they're prepared to proceed forward based on the understandings that we hope we could reach," he said. After meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem Thursday, Kerry meets here in Jordan with Abbas Friday.

2AC Africa Thumper

Recent commitment to sustained engagement in African energy thumps the DAGoldman 7/1Julianna, Obama plans $7bn African energy venture, http://www.bdlive.co.za/africa/africanbusiness/2013/07/01/obama-plans-7bnafrican-energy-venture ///cmf US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has plans for an initiative to enhance access to electricity across

Africa by tapping the continents vast energy resources and attracting international investment. The US administration said the $7bn venture, called Power Africa, will complement an additional $9bn in private funds to double access to power in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the White House more thantwo-thirds of the population is without electricity. Mr Obama unveiled the energy programme at the University of Cape Town on Sunday night. "Were looking to provide support and partnership so the lights can turn on and stay on," said Gayle Smith, National Security Council senior director for development and democracy. Mr Obama arrived in Cape

Town on Sunday morning on the second leg of a trip to Africa where he has been promoting trade and investment, pledging sustained US engagement and underscoring the importance ofdemocratic values to economic growth. The failing health of former president Nelson Mandela has weighed heavily on the trip and Mr Obama has spent his time, especially in the South African icons home country, invoking his legacy as a model for the continents leaders to earn international respect and credibility. Mr Obama visited Robben Island, a landmark in Madibas life and the antiapartheid movement. Robert F Kennedy delivered his Ripple of Hop e speech in 1966 at Cape Town University, shortly after Mr Mandela was jailed. "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped," Mr Kennedy said at the time. "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope," said the senator, then a US presidential candidate. "And crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Mr Obama also visited a community centre that focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. "The types of countries that are part of Power Africa, for instance, are the ones who are doing the right things on governance," said deputy National Security Council director Ben Rhodes. "If were going to get investment from international development banks, from private-sector partners, they need to have the predictability that comes with the rule of law and governance." The venture will begin in six countries Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania to add more than 10,000MW of cleaner, more efficient electricitygeneration capacity and will increase electricity access to at least 20-million new households and commercial entities, according to the US. General Electric is among the companies that have contributed to the $9bn in private-sector funding for the programmes first phase and has committed to help bring 5,000MW of new energy to Tanzania and Ghana. "We are in a situation where poverty is being conquered on this continent at a speed that is unprecedented," said Ms Smith. "Its much more targeted assistance from us than in the past." Sundays announcement follows criticism that Mr Obamas engagement with sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind that of his predecessors Bill Clinton and George W Bush, creating an opening for countries such as China to tap the regions resources. Mr Bush, who took US spending on Africa to new levels, made a sixcountry visit in 2008 and a three-country stop in 2011 after he left the White House. His Africa legacy includes the US Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar), a $15bn commitment to prevent and t reat AIDS infections, credited with saving or extending millions of lives on the continent. Mr Clinton signed the African Growth and Opportunity Act, an important trade agreement with countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Mr Obama was largely occupied in his first term with the US financial crisis, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a foreign policy pivot towards Asia. A year ago, he issued a

policy directive on sub-Saharan Africa calling for expanded economic growth and pressing for stronger democratic institutions. Mr Obama will travel to Tanzania on Monday for the last stop of his tourand to the countrys fast-growing Dar es Salaam to convene a roundtable of company executives and promote investments in electrification projects.

1AR Africa Thumper

Africa will dominate US foreign policy in the coming yearsGoodmar 7/2Sarah Obama's Africa Trip: A Renewed Commitment to US-African Relations, http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/obamas-africatrip-renewed-commitment-us-african-relations ///cmf President Obamas speech at the University of Cape Town on June 30 was a highlight of his

anticipated trip to Africa, demonstrating a renewed commitment to US-African relations on the part of the administration. His speech formed a narrative of progress and hope for thefuture, acknowledging the strides that the countries of Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania have made in democratization, while also making a point to ensure security in Central Africa. His mention of Sudan, South Sudan, and the Congo demonstrate a commitment to addressing mass atrocities in the region, while acknowledging the urgings of democracys greatest assetits people: "We can't force a solution on to the region. The peoples of the region have to stand up and say that enough, its time to move forward in a different way. President Obamas trip to Africa, though highlighting and applauding democratic nations and institutions, emphasized

the attention that must be paid to push for peace in the Sudans, Congo and areas where the Lords Resistance Army operates. He stated, Theseefforts have to lead to lasting peace, not just words on a paper or promises that fade away. Peace between and within Sudan and South Sudan, so that these governments get on with the work of investing in their deeply impoverished peoples. Peace in the Congo with nations keeping their commitments, so rights are at last claimed by the people of this war-torn country, and women and children no longer live in fear. His acknowledgement of coalitions in the region that are working to stabilize an increasingly volatile environment heed the work of neighboring African countries seeking to bring peace and security to the region. His trip, premised on the growth of African trade, democracy building, and youth participation has centered on the importance of grassroots participation in African progress - from President Obamas visit to a South African community health center to a food security event in Dakar, Senegal. However, his emphasis on the importance of transparent institutions was a focal point of his speech. While he applauded burgeoning democracies and rapidly growing economies in Africa, he also recognized the fragility and unevenness of this progress, and the dire security and human rights situations of many African nations: From Congo to Sudan, conflicts fester -- robbing men, women and children of the lives that they deserve. In too many countries, the actions of thugs and warlords; and drug cartels and human traffickers hold back the promise of Africa, enslaving others for their own purposes. His reference to Central Africa reflects his administration's commitment to condemn and address mass atrocities in the region, consistent with recent changes to his foreign policy team, most notably Susan Rices ascendance as National Security Advisor and Samantha Powers nomination to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. During the last leg of his trip, President Obama responded to a recent U.N. group of experts report that confirmed Rwanda and Congos support of armed rebel group M23 at a news conference in Tanzania: The countries surrounding the Congo, they've got to make a commitment to stop funding armed groups that are encroaching on territorial integrity and sovereignty of Congo. He concluded by emphasizing his inability to force a solution onto the region, saying that peace must be reached at the grassroots, and praised Tanzanias positive contributions to the United Nations peacekeeping force in Congo, or MONUSCO. The speech signals an effort to alter the status quo of U.S.-African

relationsfrom responding to pleas for aid and assistance to holistic partnerships with African nationsby addressing systemic oppression on the environmental, economic, social, and educational levels. President Obama announced plans to convene a summit in the United States next year, with headsof state from sub-Saharan Africa called to help launch a new chapter in U.S. -African relations. In addressing popular criticism against the U.S. for meddling in foreign affairs, he asserted that the administration would only assist and support an African infrastructure made up of transparent institutions: America will make no apology for supporting African efforts to end conflict and stand up for human dignity.

***Link

2AC AT Regional Focus Trades-off

The US can focus on more than one region at a timeMichael Green, 11/21/11, Foreign Policy, "Dizzy yet? the pros and cons of the asia pivot," http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/21/dizzy_yet_the_pros_and_cons_of_the_asia_pivot In addition, the "pivot" spin makes the United States look like a spastic superpower

that swings around focusing on only one region at a time. During the Cold War, the United States managed a grand strategy that was global in scope with skill; are we not capable of doing so today, when our freedom of maneuver and our relative power are in fact greater? Itis unbecoming of a global power; unnerving for our European allies (whose support we also need to manage China's ascendance); and carries the unfortunate connotation that we may "pivot" again based on a new, reductionist, one-region-at-atime concept of grand strategy.

***Impact

**Defense**

2AC Decline Inevitable

Failure in Syria already tanking US credibility and hegemonySnowden conflict provesCooke 7/1Shamus, Global Research, How Edward Snowden and Syria Will Change Obamas Foreign Policy, http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-edward-snowden-and-syria-will-change-obamas-foreign-policy/5341269 ///cmf When the NSA spying scandal broke, so did the illusion that President Obama was significantly different than his predecessor, Bush Jr. Obamas meticulously crafted image was specifically created as an alternative to Bush: Obama campaigned as a peace candidate who loved civil liberties and wanted to work with the UN instead of unilaterally launching wars. But now that the president has been fully exposed as an aspiring Bush III, will he retreat back into the sheeps clothing he wore as candidate Obama? Or will he shed any remaining pretense and fully adopt Bushs international recklessness? The answer is that both are likely true: Obama will continue to perform his stale routine as a pragmatist while in reality acting out an even more dangerous foreign policy than Bush. This is because Edward Snowden, Russia, and Syrias

President Bashar al-Assad have backed President Obama into a corner; all have exposed major weaknesses in the foreign power of the United States, and Obama will not allow himself andmore importantly U.S. national [corporate] interests to appear weak while Iran, Russia and China are rising economically and/or politically. This dynamic will inevitably lead Obama to a more aggressive

foreign policy, more Middle East wars, and more dangerous confrontations with Iran, Russia, and China. Obama has never been so vulnerable to his domestic right wing, which has been successfullyskewering him for the Snowden affair. The presidents I dont care attitude is obviously an act, and is only further provoking his right-wing attackers, a good example of which comes from the Heritage Foundation: [China and

Russia's] unwillingness to extradite[Edward Snowden] is just the latest example of the waning of American global power and influence courtesy of Team ObamaThe big question, naturally, is: With perceptions of [the United States] plummeting power quite plausible, who might be the next to take pleasure in challenging our [U.S.] interests? This is not just the opinion of a rightwing pundit, but of the entire U.S. political establishment, Democrat and Republican alike. One need only remember that during the Obama-Romney debate on foreign policy in the last election, there was very little debating and much agreement on the need for U.S. power to be projected abroad. To be fair to Obama, the right wing has been too hard on him for his weak foreign policy, since in reality Obama has acted incredibly hawkish internationally; the U.S. media simply did their best to hide his actions from criticism, as did the Republicans who he worked with in tandem. For example, in Latin America Obama backed a military coup in Honduras against an elected government, and later backed a coup in Paraguay and funneled cash to the far right wing in Venezuela to undermine the Chavez government, while maintaining the cold war era embargo against Cuba. Consequently, Latin America now equates Obamas foreign policy with Bushs. The U.S. Republicans were in complete agreement with these policies of Obama. The Middle East is another example of Obama already acting the scoundrel. His Bush-like surge tactic in Afghanistan extended a pointless war against the Taliban with whom he is now trying in vain to negotiate an honorable peace; Obama broke international law in Libya when he bombed the nation into regime change; in Syria Obama is continuing to escalate a devastating war by funneling even more guns and cash to a rebel group dominated by Islamic extremists, again without UN approval. Never mind his shameless support of Israels criminal policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and his strong alliance with the Persian Gulf Monarchy dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Up until now Obama has been able to implement these Bush-like policies with a nice guy label. But nice will no longer do the international situation has changed. Edward Snowden and Syrias president have

humiliated President Obama on key issues, and Obama must now bare his teeth, lest other nations exploit his weakness. Syria, for example, is crucially important to Obama because he has invested massive U.S. diplomatic capital in assembling a Bush-like coalition of the willing to topple the Syrian president, and if Obama fails in his attempt at regime change his coalition of lackeys will not follow the U.S.s lead in future endeavors, and may look instead to follow Iran or Russia. With each step deeper into the Syrian morass Obama will find himself unable to retreat; and at this point a step backwards would significantly diminish U.S. power in the Middle East. When Obama said, Assad must go, he committed U.S. involvement to ensure that it happens. More importantly, if Syria is able to defend itself from the U.S.-backed rebels or possibly a direct U.S. invasion other countries will no longer be scared into submission to accept U.S. foreign policy. This is crucial because asU.S. economic power wanes, its military becomes the foreign policy tactic of choice. Obama would like his Syrian intervention to be as politically painless as Bill Clintons destruction of Yugoslavia, or Obamas destruction of Libya. But Obamas rebels are being crushed on the battle field, requiring that Obama become inc reasingly invested in directly toppling the Syrian president; Obamas rebels are now to be directly armed with more sophisticated weaponry from the U.S., which will be funneled to them by the increasing amounts of U.S. troops on the Syria-Jordan border who are training the rebels, and

where a sophisticated U.S. anti-aircraft missile system has been added for defense. Obama

has already drawn up plans for an innocent sounding no fly zone, which in reality equals direct military invasion. Obama now feels that he cannot back down in Syria, lest Russia and Iran advance. Geopolitics has reached a crescendo in the Middle East and the wider world, where one wrong step can equal a broader regional or even world war. The ongoing global economic crisis ispushing U.S. corporations to demand that their political parties Democrats and Republicans act more boldly abroad to acquire new markets/consumers for corporate products, new vehicles for investment, and new sources of cheap raw materials and labor. Russia and China have similar aspirations. Barely into his second term Obamas corporate backers are demanding he bare his fangs and quit acting the lamb U.S. national interests are at stake! In doing so Obama will expose the true nature of the U.S. two-party system, and thus funnel political activity into the streets and/or the creation of a new, mass party of working people to challenge the decrepit political status quo. The first black president was the last great hope of the American two-party system. His failure will herald a new era in U.S. politics.

Asia Prolif Inev

Asian prolif inevitableeven a credible Asia pivot isnt enough to assuage allies fearsKarl 13David, president of the Asia Strategy Initiative and director of studies at the Pacific Council on International Policy, U.S. Strategic Credibility in Asia: An Update, April-1, http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2013/04/01/u-s-strategic-credibility-in-asia-an-update/ ///cmf In a post two weeks ago, I argued that the Obama administration confronts a serious credibility gap in

Asia and cited as one example the small but growing number of influential South Koreans calling for their country to develop its own nuclear weapons because of renewed doubts about Washingtons commitment to South Koreas security. This specific problem involves what is known instrategic policy circles as extended deterrence that is, the convincing projection of U.S. nuclear deterrence power over far-flung allies confronted with menacing enemies. Extended deterrence entails a two-fold challenge: Dissuading hostile states from taking offensive action while also persuading allies that there is no need to bolster their security through nuclear proliferation. Washington spent a great deal of treasure and psychic energy during the Cold War coming to grips with these problems, mainly in Europe as it tried to reassure NATO countries that America had their back even as Soviet nuclear forces grew in size and capacity. To a much lesser extent the problems of extended deterrence were also at work in East Asia during the Cold War. But they are now cropping up again as the regional security order becomes more complex. This can be seen most clearly in the drama now playing out with North Korea. The United States has responded to Pyongyangs increasing bellicosity in a way straight out of the Cold War playbook: 1.) by beefing up missile defense capabilities in Alaska; and 2.) sending nuclear-capable B-2 and B-52 bombers on practice runs over the Korean peninsula. As illustrated in a Pentagon press conference following the bomber runs, the intended audience for these moves is not just Pyongyang. General Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made a point of emphasizing: The reaction to the B-2 that were most concerned about is not necessarily the reaction it might elicit in North Korea, but rather among our Japanese and Korean allies. Those exercises are mostly to assure our allies that they can count on us to be prepared and to help them deter conflict. As the mission was being announced in an official statement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was also on the phone with his South Korean counterpart, reaffirming the United States unwavering commitment to defend the South. Regardless of how the current North Korean crisis ends or the Obama administrations success in

dealing with the broader credibility problems of its Asia pivot, Washingtons challenges with extended deterrence will only grow in the years ahead as nuclear proliferation expands in the region and what some (here and here) are calling the Second Nuclear Age takes more concrete shape.

No Japan ProlifTimeframe for Japanese prolif is yearsno tech or materialsLogan 13Justin, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, China, America, and the Pivot to Asia, Policy Analysis No. 717, Jan-8 /// cmf Importantly, however, the time it would take Japan, for example, to go nuclear, is almost certainly

longer than the conventional wisdom, which has generally hovered around six months.120 There is little indication that Japan has prepared for such a rapid timeframe. Not only would Japan need to produce weapons-grade fissile material, but a significant amount more work would need to be done in developing delivery systems. A number of size- able technical hurdles would put Japans time- frame in the realm of years, not months, to be- come a bona fide nuclear-weapons state.121 If Washington were to insist that Japan carry a heavier share of the burden forproviding for its own defense, Tokyo may look into how it would overcome these hurdles.122

AT China Rise Bad

Liberal institutions and domestic politics ensure peaceful China riseLogan 13Justin, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, China, America, and the Pivot to Asia, Policy Analysis No. 717, Jan-8 /// cmf Two logics underpin the theory of the optimists, both borrowed from the liberal school of international relations.11 First is liberal institutionalist logic, which holds that Chinas political and military behavior can be

constrained in a web of international institutions. These would allow it to rise into the existing international orderwhich was shaped by the institutions created un- der American leadership after World War IIand prevent China from transforming the rules that govern the order.12 For liberal institutionalists, it is hard to understand why China would have any problems with the status quo. They wonder why, given that China has made huge strides forward in terms of prosperity and even influence under the existing order, it would bother to try changing it.13 Liberal institutionalists see international politics as tightly constrained by international institutions and laws, and argue, asPrincetons G. John Ikenberry does, that while the United States cannot thwart Chinas rise, it can help ensure that Chinas power is exercised within the rules and institutions that the United States and its partners have crafted over the last century, rules and institutions that can protect the interests of all states in the more crowded world of the future.14 Optimists argue that China can be con- strained because the expansive and cross- cutting network of international

institutions promotes positive-sum outcomes and renders the American-dominated order hard to overturn and easy to join.15 If Washington plays its cards correctly, Iken- berry writes, it can make the liberal order so expansive and institutionalized that China will have no choice but to join and operate within it.16 The second liberal logic holds that states international behavior is induced by the domestic political structures within them.17 In this view, to the extent that China hasforeign policy objectives that conflict with American interests, these exist because of Chinas undemocratic domestic politics. Accordingly, the argument goes, if China democratized, China could continue to rise while

resigning itself to U.S. preponderance. Advocates of this view place less emphasis on internationalinstitutions. For them, the question is whether Chinas domestic politi cal system can be transformed from one-party rule toward democracy. If it can, there is less reason to fear that Chinas international am - bitions will grow dangerously expansive. This theory is popular in Washington, where policy is based in part on the belief that continued economic growth will help transform Chinas political system in a democratic direction. If all goes according to plan, economic

growth in China will produce a growing middle class, which should then demand greater political rights. These demands are expected to generate more democratic politics.18 Then, these increasingly democratic politics are supposed to plug into a crude version of democratic peace theory, in which the domestic institutions of democratic countries prevent them from going to war (or presumably,in this case, even engaging in serious security competition) with other democracies. What both schools of liberalism agree on is that there is no iron law that growing Chinese power will create a zero-sum security

tradeoff between China and the United States and its allies. This represents the central disagreementbetween the optimists and pessimists.

AT China WarChina doesnt have the military capabilities to start a conflictLogan 13Justin, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, China, America, and the Pivot to Asia, Policy Analysis No. 717, Jan-8 /// cmf The broader problem with U.S. China policy is that it takes as a given that a more powerful and activist

China would be bad for U.S. national security, but no one has detailed precisely how. The American Enterprise Institutes Dan Blumenthal and his coauthors write that China is a threat to the United States because its ambitions threaten Americas Asian allies, raise questions about the credibility of U.S. alliance pledges,and imperil the U.S. military strategy that underpins its global primacy.84 It is telling how prominently alliances figure i n this formulation, but Blumenthals logic is backward. The United States should form alliances

with countries when it needs to fight a common enemy. It shouldnt litter the globe with alliance commitments during peacetime, and then threaten war for the sake of those alliances. In the modern era, Washingtons alliances exist pri- marily to defend the allies and the credibility of otheralliances, not the United States. At the bottom of realist theories of international relations, such as Mearsheimers, is the prospect of being conquered or otherwise losing political sovereignty. Just as it is terrifically difficult to envision the United States conquering China today, it is similarly difficult to imagine China conquering the United States,

given the Pacific Ocean and the massive American nuclear arsenal. Even Chinese naval dominance over a good chunk of the Pacific seems like a fantasy for the foresee- able future. Currently the PLA is struggling to acquire the ability to control its near seas. Its highly touted first aircraft carrier is, in the apt phrasing of one analyst, a piece of junk,85 and China is decades from having a bona fide blue-water navy, let alone one that could challenge the United States. Of course, a number of smaller problems are more likely. A much more powerful China could attempt to use itsnavy to exclude the United States from engaging in commerce with states in Asia. If it could overwhelm neighboring states, China could hold hostage the sea lanes in Asia to extract concessions from other states in the region. But it bears asking

how likely those scenarios are, especially considering the sizable costs China would incur to achieve such results.

AT Solves CredibilityAsia pivot bad for credibilityforces us into conflict or be seen as a paper tigerRaine and Miere 13Sarah and Christian, Transatlantic Fellow @ the German Marshall Fund and Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security @ IISS, Chapter Four: The US in the South China Sea, Adelphi Series, 53:436-437, 151-178, Taylor and Francis /// cmf Another further constraint on US engagement is the limit on alliance-building in Southeast Asia demanded by US national interests beyond the South China Sea. As Germany and the UK manoeuvred before the First World War to construct alliances designed to deter conflict, the dominoes of commitments engendered ended up

actually helping to fan the flames of war.34 The danger for the US is that it ends up creating expectations it may not want to meet, taking on actual or perceived commitments that force it towards a crossroads it might otherwise seek to avoid: the decision to stand by an ally or partner on principle and risk an escalation on a matter not of fundamental national interest, or to be seen to have their bluff called, thereby bringing into question the core credibility of US commitmentsin the region. This is particularly the case with regard to the Philippines, with whom the US has a Mutual Defence Agreement, certainly applicable to the Western Pacific but questionably applicable to the South China Sea. As the Philippines sent its US-donated cutter to arrest Chinese fisher- men off Scarborough Reef in April 2012, the US had a delicate balance to strike in the support it proffered. A 2+2 meeting in May between the foreign and defence ministers of the two coun- tries stressed Washingtons strategic ambiguity on the issue: while reaffirming the 1951 San Francisco Treaty, US diplomats also highlighted their countrys neutrality on the South China Sea sovereignty disputes. Whilst Secretary of State Clinton therefore explicitly stated that the US would protect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, she notably neglected to mention whether the defence treaty extended to disputed areas of the sea. The message sent was clear in its equivocality and is similar to the US position on Taiwan: while the US will help the Philippines develop its military and will protect undisputed Philippine territory, it cannot afford to provide a carte blanche for defending disputed areas claimed by the Philippines.

diesel submarines to China on the eve of newly installed President Xi Jinping's first official visit to Moscow.Although details of the sale have yet to be worked out, observers say that it will represent the most significant transfer of Russian weaponry to China in a decade. The Su-35, a fourth-generation stealth fighter, is superior to any plane now in China's arsenal, while the Lada is a more advanced, quieter version of the Kilo-class sub it already possesses. Together, the two systems will provide the Chinese with a substantial boost in combat quality. For anyone who has followed Asian security affairs over the past few years, it is hard to view this deal as anything but a reaction to the Barack Obama

administration's new Asian strategy, its "pivot" to the Pacific. As announced by President involves beefing-up the already strong US air and naval presence in the western Pacific - in, that is, waters off China - along with increased US arms aid to American allies like Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. Not surprisingly, China has responded by bolstering its own naval capabilities, announcing plans for the acquisition of a second aircraft carrier (its first began operational testing in late 2012) and the procurement of advanced arms from Russia to fill gaps in its defense structure. This, in turn, is bound to increase the pressure on Washington from Japan, Taiwan, and other allies to provide yet more weaponry, triggering a classic Cold-War-style arms race in the region. On the eve of Secretary of State John Kerry's JuneObama in a speech before the Australian Parliament in November 2011, it 24 visit to India, that country's press was full of reports and rumors about upcoming US military sales. Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, was widely quoted as saying that, in addition to sales already in the pipeline, "we think there's going to be billions of dollars more in the next couple of years." In his comments, Shapiro referred to Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who, he said, was heading up an arms sales initiative, "which we think is making some good progress and will, hopefully, lead to an even greater pace of additional defense trade with India". To some degree, of course, this can be viewed as a continuation of weapons sales as a domestic economic motor, since US weapons companies have long sought access to India's vast arms market. But such sales now clearly play another role as well: to lubricate the US drive to incorporate India into the arc of powers encircling China as part of the Obama administration's new Asia-Pacific strategy. Toward this end, as Deputy Secretary of State William Burns explained back in 2011, "Our two countries launched a strategic dialogue on the Asia-Pacific to ensure that the world's two largest democracies pursue strategies that reinforce one another." Arms transfers are seen by the leaders of both countries as a vital tool in the "containment" of China (though all parties are careful to avoid that old Cold War term). So watch for Kerry to pursue new arms agreements while in New Delhi. Repeating History These are just some examples of recent arms deals (or ones under discussion) that suggest

a fresh willingness on the part of the major powers to use weapons transfers as instruments of geopolitical intrusion and competition. The reappearance of such behavior suggests a troubling resurgence of Cold War-like rivalries. Even if senior leaders in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing are not talking about resurrecting some 21st-century version of the Cold War, anyone with a sense of history can see that they are headed down a grim, well-trodden path toward crisis and confrontation. What gives this an added touch of irony is that leading arms suppliersand recipients, including the United States, recently voted in the UN General Assembly to approve the Arms Trade Treaty, which was meant to impose significant constraints on the global trade in conventional weapons. Although the treaty has many loopholes, lacks an enforcement mechanism, and will require years to achieve full implementation, it represents the first genuine attempt by the international community to place real restraints on weapons sales. "This treaty won't solve the problems of Syria overnight, no treaty could do that, but it will help to prevent future Syrias," said Anna MacDonald, the head of arms control for Oxfam International and an ardent treaty supporter. "It will help to reduce armed violence. It will help to reduce conflict." This may be the hope, but such expectations will quickly be crushed if the major weapons suppliers, led by the US and Russia, once again come to see arms sales as the tool of choice to gain geopolitical advantage in areas of strategic importance. Far from bringing peace and stability - as the proponents of such transactions invariably

each new arms deal now holds the possibility of taking us another step closer to a new Cold War with all the heightened risks of regional friction and conflict that entails. Areclaim we, in fact, seeing a mindless new example of the old saw: that those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it?

Asia Pivot BadChina War

Continued pursuit of China containment policy triggers US-Sino warYang 13Yoa, director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University and editor of China Economic Quarterly, Americas pivot to Asia will provoke China, Feb-12, http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2013/02/12/americas-pivot-to-asia-will-provokechina/#ixzz2XuEFkpjX /// cmf One of the purposes of the pivot is presumably to hedge Chinas military encroachment on its

neighbours. It should be noted, though, that the growth of Chinas military spending has been largely a result of itseconomic growth. Military spending is measured in nominal terms and the nominal size of Chinas economy has been growing by double-digit rates. To the average Chinese, the US is once again showing its nature as a hegemon that wields its power wherever it likes to, reinforcing the long-held Chinese view that being backward is to invite bullies. If the pivot has any effect on China, it must be that it has

pushed Beijing to accelerate its military build-up.

Americans like to say that the pivot is a response to Chinas more aggressive claims on some of the islands and reefs in the South China and East China Seas. Informed Chinese would not agree with this view. But regardless of the sequence of the events, the result presented to the world is that the American pivot has escalated tensions in the region.

It has been taken as an encouragement by Chinas neighbours; in the meantime, it has forced China to take more assertive actions. The more constructive part of the pivot should have been the TransPacific Partnership. But even on this count, the US has caused more suspicion than goodwill in China. The TPP was designed for like-minded countries to form, in President Barack Obamas words, a platinum free-trade agreement for the AsiaPacific region. It was the result of both Americas agony with the ineffectiveness of the Asia -Pacific Economic Co-operation forum and the White Houses political strategy to please those on both the right and the left it expands free trade, so Republicans are happy; but it also requires member countries to meet labour, environmental and even human rights standards, so Democrats are happy. To most Chinese, however, the TPP is one of Americas intentional moves to exclude China. For one thing, there is no way for China to meet its conditions in the medium term. For another, the TPP will not bring significant gains to the US, precisely because China, the USs largest trading partner in the region, is not going to join. More importantly, China was not part of the design process. To China, the TPP is a club set up solely on American will; China can knock on the door, but can be rejected. Ten years ago, when China applied to join the World Trade Organisation, this would not be a problem. Today, China feels differently: it has become reluctant to accept something if it does not feel ownership. In a sense, all Chinese history since the mid-1800s has involved China trying to become as equal

as other world powers. Today, Chinas leaders and the Chinese people are increasingly feeling that point is coming. Yet the existing powers, noticeably, the US and EU, may have different ideas about equality. To them, China will only be treated as one of us after China is fully transformed politically and socially. This discrepancy of beliefs will be a major source of tension between China and existing powers in the coming years.

Only the pivot risks conflict between the US and China it stirs up nationalist fervor and breaks down economic interdependenceJohn Glaser, 6/24/13, The Washington Times, "The asia pivot: making an enemy of china," http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/john-glaser-intelligence-foreign-policy-world/2013/jun/24/asia-pivot-makingenemy-china/ But there is one aspect of Obamas bellicose foreign policy so far removed from the al-Qaeda threat that he has been unable to conjure it: the so-called Asia Pivot. The rebalancing to East Asia is a confrontational policy that involves surging American military and naval presence throughout the region in the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, Guam, South Korea, Singapore, etc. and boosting support to Chinas neighboring rivals. Washington has been refurbishing old WWII military bases in the region and building new ones in order to lay the groundwork for an air -sea battle with China. Weve even deployed surveillance drones near Chinas borders. One wonders how might America rea ct to such gestures in her backyard. What villainous offense has China committed against American security? Are they supporting terrorists? Have they threatened us with military attack? Are they amassing weapons of mass destruction pointed at Washington? No,

nothing

like that. Obama

hasnt been able to invoke a monster to destroy in

China because there isnt one. Chinas mere existence as a rising economic and military power is its major transgression. China threatens not the security of Americans, but the hegemony of Washington. The Asia Pivot harks back to a time when imperial powers didnt have to justify military expansionism with tall tales of impending attacks on the homeland. It more resembles the famed Great Game in which the British Empire fought with the Russian Empire for strategic supremacy in Central Asia. According to Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, writing in Foreign Affairs, China is the only country widely seen as a possible threat to U.S. predominance. Indeed, Chinas rise has le d to fears that the country will soon overwhelm its neighbors and one day supplant the United States as a global hegemon. They add that

America is the most intrusive outside actor in Chinas internal affairs, the guarantor of the statusquo in Taiwan, the largest naval presence in the East China and South China seas, the formal or informal military ally of many of Chinas neighbors, and the primary framer and defender of existing international legal regimes. The U.S.

could cut its defense budget in half tomorrow and still outspend China on its military. But that hasnt calmed the Obama administration into easing his approach. This comes with serious risks. Already by 2011, the Center for Strategic International Studies identified in a report the unintendedconsequences that could come with Obamas stern posture in Asia. The report predicted a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leaderships judgment that it must respond to a U.S. strategy that seeks to prevent Chinas reemergence as a great power. The U.S. Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in

China that will increase pressure on Chinas incoming leadership to stand up to the United States, the report added. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of Americas military posture in the region and the new U.S. defense strategic guidelines. Or, in the words of former Chinese diplomat Jia Xiudong: Dont treat China as an enemy. Otherwise you end up with an enemy in China. The economic interdependence between the U.S. and China has risen to unprecedented levels, and thats a good thing. Left to their own devices, Americans and Chinese would continue to engage in peaceful, mutually beneficial trade. Only Washington, going abroad in search of monsters to destroy, could turn that into a casus belli .

Glaser 13Bonnie, Senior Adviser for Asia @ CSIS, Freeman Chair in China Studies and Senior Associate, Pacific Forum, Pivot to Asia: Prepare for Unintended Consequences, April-13, http://csis.org/publication/pivot-asia-prepare-unintended-consequences ///cmf The Obama administrations initial policy in 2009 raised fears in many Asian capitals of a G2 condominium that would make decisions over the heads of others. Those concerns were unwarranted and short lived. Beijing interpreted the U.S. approach as weakness, which, along with Chinas economic success and Americas struggles, led to a year o f Chinese hubris that manifested itself in a series of intimidating actions in Chinas neighborhood. Subsequent entreaties by regional states to counterbalance China increased U.S. attention to the Asia-Pacific region. Now, the U.S. Asia pivot has

prompted Chinese anxiety about U.S. containment and heightened regional worries about intensified U.S.-China strategic competition. In the run-up to the leadership transition that will take place at Chinas 18th Party Congress this fall, Beijing is inwardly focused and unlikely to act on its fears. However, 2013 could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leaderships judgment that it must respond to a U.S. strategy that seeks to prevent Chinas reemergence as a great power. Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable. The U.S. Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that will increase pressure on Chinas incoming leadership to stand up to the United States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of Americas military posture in the region and the new U.S.defense strategic guidelines. For example, an article published in Chinas Global Times, a jingoistic newspaper owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily, called for China to strengthen its long-range strike capabilities. Deng Xiaopings guideline to keep a low profile in the international arena, designed more than two decades ago to cope with uncertainty produced by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, is

increasingly seen by Chinas elite and public as irrelevant and even harmful to the task of defending Chinese ever-expanding coreinterests. Some voices are calling for closer alignment with Moscow and promoting the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as a new pole in the international arena to strengthen the emerging powers against the West. Xi Jinping, who will assume the helm as Chinas new leader later this year, will be under pressure from many

domestic constituencies to more forcefully defend Chinese interests in the international arena. Seeking to quickly consolidate his power and enhance the legitimacy of the Communist Party, Xi and his newly installed Politburo Standing Committee colleagues may be more willing than their predecessors to test drive a policy that is more confrontational.

US-China war goes nuclear

China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with China, and all

serious US militarists know that China's minuscule nuclear capacity is not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power arrayed against it (twenty archaic Chinese warheads versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan, whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil war, remains the most dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a war that no one wanted, a misstep in Taiwan by any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that neither wants. Such a war would bankrupt the United States, deeply divide Japan and probably end in a Chinese victory, given that China is the world's most populous country and would be defending itself against a foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust. However, given the nationalistic challenge to China's sovereignty of anyTaiwanese attempt to declare its independence formally, forward-deployed US forces on China's borders have virtually no deterrent effect.